


A Little Help From My Friends

by LeoLeonte



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Angst, Blood and Injury, Book 4: The Creeping Shadow, Book 5: The Empty Grave, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Flirting, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Holly is a Great Mum, Hurt/Comfort, I would say humour but I'm not that funny, Jealousy, Like wring this thing and you'll have a puddle of angst the size of the Pacific, Literal Sleeping Together, Someone asked for this and it might have been myself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 51
Words: 165,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26794225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoLeonte/pseuds/LeoLeonte
Summary: “His eyes softened “Okay. I’ll let you go if you want,” he hesitated, “but can I try maybe? Can I try to kiss you?” He whispered and looked at me, completely open and honest. He wasn’t teasing me anymore.”Lucy is severely injured after escaping Winkman’s goons and she won’t make it to Portland Row. There’s help to be found somewhere closer, but what else can be found with someone pale, sarcastic and freckled?And what about Lockwood? What will he find?AU from chapter 13 in the Creeping Shadow, but loosely following the storyline through to the end of The Empty Grave
Relationships: Lucy Carlyle & George Cubbins, Lucy Carlyle & Holly Munro, Lucy Carlyle & Quill Kipps, Lucy Carlyle/Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle/Quill Kipps, Quill Kipps & Anthony Lockwood, Quill Kipps & Kate Godwin
Comments: 180
Kudos: 89





	1. Woodbridge Street

**Author's Note:**

> This idea had been swirling in my mind for a while now and falling down a rabbit hole in Pinterest cemented it. Sorry, not sorry about that one pairing. Does anyone even know the name of that ship? Regardless, it's not one I'm willing to go down with. Or I might. We'll see. Feel free to leave a comment.  
> *EDIT: over the chapters I'm afraid that I'm not very nice to Lockwood but I promise that it's not a mindless bashing-fic and there's a purpose which will start making sense around chapter 15.  
> Don't think I'm not going to do right by our boy.

I desperately wanted to go to Portland Row. I needed the familiar comfort of my friends, but I knew that in my state I would never make it. It was too far.

Having lost my pursuers at least somewhat, the adrenaline had started to wear off and I could feel the weariness that went bone deep. The lack of sleep made me stagger and the blood loss from the cut on my arm was making me woozy. I raked my mind, trying to decide where to go.

There was only one place I could think of that I might be able to reach by foot in my pitiful state. It was a terrible idea, but it was all I had, and I knew it was safe. I could even get some half-decent medical attention which I needed desperately.

Unfortunately, the people who hunted me knew that I had been injured. They would have heard me crying out when I was struck by the knife. That ruled out the hospital as it was the first place they were going to look.

I staggered through a small alley, wincing with every step I took on my injured ankle. I almost fell into a group of overfilled trash cans. It was still early spring, so it wasn’t hot enough outside to make it smell too bad.

Unfortunately for me, that chill that was hanging in the air was quickly zapping away my strength. I was shivering so bad it affected my movements, but at this point I wasn’t sure if it was due to the cold or shock. I couldn’t go into shock, then I'd be done for.

I needed help fast. I was starting to feel lightheaded and my body felt heavy at the same time. The wound on my arm was throbbing, and I could still feel the steady flow of blood running down my fingers.

I cradled it, painfully conscious about the fact that if I wasn’t careful, I risked creating a trail of blood showing my pursuers exactly where to find me like some macabre version of Hansel and Gretel.

Ever so slowly, I reached Woodbridge Street. I had only been there a few times, but the door I was looking for was easily recognisable as it was by far the most ostentatious one.

Before I reached it, a car passed me by. Probably agents going to a job, but an icy tremor went through me anyway. I had been careful and was certain I hadn’t been followed but paranoia tore at me.

The car didn’t stop; it didn’t even slow down, but I paused and listened carefully for any traffic or footsteps nearby. It was only when I was certain that no one was lurking in the shadows that I dared approach the door.

I used the extravagant silver doorknocker and slammed it down once with all the remaining power I had and waited.

I waited what seemed like forever.

I resigned myself to the fact that no one was home.

I was completely exposed, and it would be too easy for my would-be killers to spot me and finish the job, but I couldn’t run anymore - my body was betraying me. I was dead on my feet and leaned against the door.

The door supported my entire weight and I had started sliding down when the door was suddenly ripped open. As my support disappeared, I fell onto a very naked chest.

“Oomph!”

We both fell to the floor with a resounding slap. Me on top of him. Thankfully, Quill Kipps was at least wearing pyjama bottoms even if he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“We have got to stop meeting like this" he wheezed from under me.

He was of course referring to an incident a few months ago where I tackled him seemingly out of the blue. He was less than an inch from being ghost touched. It was reckless of him to walk alone at night without back-up when he didn’t have Talents anymore and he had almost been killed by something as trivial as a simple Spectre. That would have been an embarrassing way to go.

I had followed him home afterwards to make sure he got there safely. It was winter so it was dark already even though it was only late afternoon, so he’d invited me in for tea. I had stayed for dinner as well and crashed on his uncomfortable sofa that night. I had returned a few times since then to rant about some idiots from Bunchurch who had almost gotten me killed and about a creep of a Supervisor from Staines who was trying to supervise me a lot closer than I’d liked. I had kicked his middle-aged arse thoroughly, but I had needed to vent about it to someone other than the Skull.

I tried to scramble off of Kipps, but only managed to awkwardly flop down next to him. My arm left a thick, red stripe of blood on his chest, contrasting against his pale skin. He looked down at himself and then at me and I saw his eyebrows furrow in – was that concern?

“Help?” I whispered weakly.

Kipps jumped and slammed the door, locking it in a fluent motion.

“What the hell happened to you?!” he blurted when he took in my poor condition. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

“No. No hospital,” I slurred. “Can’t go there, they’ll find me.”

His eyebrows rose high on his forehead, but he didn’t question it. He bent down and grabbed my injured arm, making me cry out in pain. He immediately let go and after some sort of internal debate, he picked me up, bridal style instead. I didn’t have much blood to spare, but I think I still managed a blush as I was pressed against his warm skin. I thought absently that it was impressive how he carried me so easily, considering how skinny I had always thought he was.

He walked up a flight of stairs and down a narrow hallway. He had to walk sideways, not to bump my head into the wall. He kicked open a door and walked a few steps before putting me down on a still warm bed. His bed. Now I really _was_ blushing, and I felt bad about bleeding on his sheets that were obviously made of silk.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked, business-like, searching my body for injuries in the dim light from the bedside lamp that he must have left on after I woke him up.

“My arm,” I croaked. “My ankle as well, but the arm is worse.”

He only nodded and carefully helped me out of my coat. He didn’t bother with my shirt but ripped it open to expose the injury on my forearm. It looked bad. It was certainly bleeding and quite a lot. We would need to stop the bleeding, and soon.

Kipps hurried out of the room and I heard his bare feet slapping on the stairs. He returned not long after with briefcase I recognised as a Fittes medical field kit. Kipps had emergency medical training. He could be a smarmy bastard, but he did save lives. In my book that somewhat made up for the bad attitude and sarcastic remarks. He rummaged around a bit before finding what he needed. I whimpered when I felt him using a compress to put pressure on the wound to staunch the blood flow.

“Come on Carlyle don’t go soft on me now. I know you’re tougher than that.” He taunted. “What the hell happened to you? I'd think it was a solo case gone wrong, but last time I checked, ghosts didn’t use knives. Unless you ran into another poltergeist.” He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

I sighed, wondering how much to tell him. “I was… robbed,” I whispered, not wanting to elaborate too much. I'd learned to trust Kipps, but my connection to the skull was somehow too private to share with just anyone. Luckily, he didn’t press. Agents on the way to Clerkenwell were often victims of muggings from relic-men looking for sources to sell and it wasn’t unlikely for a lone agent to be followed home. After all, we did work with some valuable things. Silver nets weren’t cheap.

“I’m going to put a temporary bandage on this to hold the compress. You've got some cuts on your face as well that we need to clean so they don’t get infected and ruin your lovely face.” He told me as a matter of fact.

I couldn’t help but snort “Yeah, we wouldn’t want that.”

He smirked at me “We certainly wouldn’t. That would be a travesty.”

My mind had to be more addled than I thought because I had a hard time picking up on the expected sarcasm. He finished the bandage quickly and left the room. He soon returned with a bowl of water and a washcloth, along with an ice pack.

He grabbed a few pillows from the other side of the bed and used them to prop my bad leg up. He wrapped the ice pack in a thin towel and carefully moulded it around my ankle. He then dipped the cloth in the water and slowly started washing my face. I was surprised by how gentle he was about it.

When he finished, he moved on to my arm and frowned. “You can’t keep these clothes on.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what he expected would come from that. Apparently reading my mind, he smirked and rolled his eyes. He went to a wardrobe that I hadn’t noticed and pulled out a t-shirt and a spare pair of pyjama bottoms which he put on the bed next to me.

“Just call me when you’re done.” He grinned “Or if you need help.”

“Not bloody likely.” I huffed.

He chuckled “There’s the Lucy I know" he turned and left. He didn’t close the door and I could hear his bare feet against the stairs. I tried to peel off my bloody shirt which proved harder than I expected. I was dizzy and almost blacked out because I sat up too quickly. I thankfully managed to both take off my shirt and put the clean t-shirt on. The bottom part was harder. My body was stiff, and I found it embarrassingly hard to reach my feet. My ankle was swollen, and it was hard to peel off my leggings that were torn and wet. By the time I was finished, I heard a knock on the door frame.

“You decent?”

I could practically hear the aggravating smirk. I hummed as a yes and Kipps entered, bringing a glass of water. “I have some painkillers here,” he showed me two white pills, I recognised as normal paracetamol “I think it could be a good idea for you to take them, because you’re bound to be sore and it would be good if you could get some rest.”

“Thank you.” I gave him a grateful smile and received a soft one in return.

I realised how rare it was that Kipps actually smiled. Usually he was frowning or looked like he was smelling something bad. Other than that, I had seen plenty of smirks and sometimes grins. Mostly arrogant, mocking and sometimes, though rarely teasing but never this sort of open, honest expression. He actually looked rather handsome like that, or that might have been the injury talking.

I quickly swallowed the pills and almost downed the entire glass. He removed the temporary bandage from before to inspect the wound. He winced. It was deep, long and it was still bleeding.

“You’re definitely going to need stitches. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? I’m rubbish at this, you know.” He smiled ruefully and scratched his cheek, leaving blood smears there.

I scoffed “That’s a lie. I saw you fix Lily Atkinson’s leg.”

He narrowed his eyes at me in confusion. “Who?”

“Short, blonde girl from Tamworth. Think she’s about thirteen. She fell out of a shop window in Chelsea and you stitched up her leg. It healed nicely too. I worked with her a few weeks ago.”

He only shrugged. He washed the wound to get rid of the dried blood and dried it carefully with another cloth. I tried not to wince too much. Then he rummaged about in the briefcase and pulled out a sterile suture kit, and a disinfectant.

“I need to ask you again – are you sure you’re up for this, Carlyle? It’s not too late to go to the hospital.”

I huffed in irritation “Just get on with it, Kipps!”

He shook his head at me and disinfected the wound. I growled some rather colourful expletives I had learned from the skull.

Kipps looked at me funny. The words might have been a bit old fashioned, but I felt that they conveyed me feelings well enough. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep my breathing even as he worked.

I ended up with twelve stitches, all neat, evenly placed and precise. To be honest, I think the result was better than if I’d gone to the hospital. They were always eager to get us out of there and every injury was treated in a rush so they could get on to the next agent.

He cleaned the wound again for good measure and covered it with a bandage.

“Good girl.” He winked at me. “I’m sorry I don’t have any lollies.”

“Thank you, Kipps.” I smiled at him, grateful.

He gave me a soft smile as well and opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind. He brushed some hair away from my cheek and must have spotted his blood covered hands.

He looked down at himself. His chest was still covered in my blood and now he had streaks of the stuff on his arms as well. “Looks like I’m going to need a shower. You turned me into a right mess.” He grinned cheekily at me. He removed the ice pack, and tucked me in.

I was already half asleep when he kissed my temple and whispered “try to rest”

He squeezed my hand and left without another word. I fell asleep to the sound of the shower running.


	2. Freckles, Love and Broccoli

I woke up when an annoying slice of sunlight shone through a crack between the light curtains, landing directly on my face. At first, I wasn’t convinced that I wasn’t still dreaming because there were some very strange things going on.

A twinge of pain from my arm confirmed that I was very much awake and therefor, the arm around my waist and the one under my head, not to mention the warm body behind me and the soft even breath on my shoulder had to be very real also.

I carefully turned around and the arm around my waist tightened, pulling me closer so I was lying nose to nose with the pale face of Quill Kipps. I took in the shock of dark red hair which he had grown out quite a bit. It had a funny waviness to it.

His many freckles even dotted his eyelids and there was a thin white scar on his cheekbone. The lower part of his face had a coppery sheen from stubble. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt. I looked down and saw that his freckles certainly weren’t contained to his face. A fact that I hadn’t quite registered the night before. Maybe because of all the blood that had covered them then. That didn’t answer the question of how the hell we had ended up like this? I put a hand on the soft warm skin of his shoulder and shook him gently, trying to wake him up.

“Kipps,” I whispered.

I don’t know why I whispered. There was no one to hide from and we weren’t in a library, it just seemed appropriate there in the morning light where the only other sound was the slight rustle of the sheets.

He sighed and his eyelids fluttered. He blinked awake, squinting at me with his forest green eyes that gradually took on a sparkly quality the more awake he turned. I don’t know how long our eyes were locked on each other, but it felt like it might have been hours

“Morning.” He smirked but made no sign of moving. Then again, neither did I. His voice was somehow still full of sleep.

“Er, good morning.” I frowned.

His smirk deepened, probably at the sound of my confusion. “How do you feel?”

I raised an eyebrow at him, but we were lying so close that I had doubts he would even be able to see it. “Physically?”

He grinned. “That too,”

“Er, physically I’m surprisingly okay. Mentally, I’m feeling very strange.”

“Really? How so?” he asked me with that annoying smirk of his.

“This,” I gestured between us with difficulty since the space was incredibly limited. “This is weird.”

“Is it? It’s certainly unexpected but remarkably comfortable." he shrugged without letting go and hugged me even tighter. He moved my one leg in between his own, effectively locking it in place.

He had me there. It _was_ comfortable there in his arms. “I just don’t – I don’t know.”

His eyes softened “Okay. I’ll let you go if you want,” he hesitated, “but can I try maybe? Can I try to kiss you?” He whispered and looked at me, completely open and honest. He wasn’t teasing me anymore.

I swallowed hard and his eyes darted to my lips. My stomach did something funny and my heart was hammering away in my chest. So was his, I could easily feel it through my shirt which meant that he could feel mine as well. I had to admit that I was curious. “I – maybe?”

He looked deep into my eyes, seemingly searching for something. I don’t know if he found what he was looking for. “Tell me if you want me to stop.” He whispered so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it, but rather felt it because at that point we were so close that his lips were already brushing against mine

He slowly closed the rest of the tiny space between us. My breath hitched when I felt his lips hesitantly pressing against mine. He had always been abrasive and somehow sharp as a person, even if his edges had been somewhat smoothed after the death of Ned Shaw. The softness, he displayed in this kiss surprised me. I hadn’t thought he was capable of that.

I hadn’t planned on it, but before I knew it, my eyes closed, and I kissed him back. He deepened the kiss, and he pinched my lower lip gently between his teeth. I felt the tickling of his tongue, inviting mine to join his, which it happily did.

I let my hand travel from his shoulder and into the hair on the back of his head, tugging at it a little which made him sigh. His hand reached up under the back of the shirt I was wearing, caressing my spine. The calluses in his palm – the mark of an agent, were tickling my bare skin, making me shiver. Butterflies fluttered around in my stomach, but then my brain reactivated, and I remembered who I was kissing. I didn’t think this was really the way it was supposed to be, not that I had any experience in the kissing department. It had never exactly been a priority for me.

After a while, we slowly came apart, both flushed and breathing heavily. I was frowning, I couldn’t help it. Quill smiled ruefully at me. “Nothing huh?” he asked.

I grimaced and didn’t know quite what to say. It wasn’t nothing, it just wasn’t what I thought it would be.

“Don’t worry, me neither, I think.” He chuckled a little and I gave him a smile.

“Don’t get me wrong, it was very good, but -"

He interrupted me with a snort. “I have faith in my skills – they’re not the problem. But a kiss - especially a first kiss between two people should bloody well feel more than good.” He grinned at me.

I smiled when he showed his familiar arrogance. He pulled his arm out from under me and used it to prop up his head, so he was looking down at me.

“Look, Lucy. I admire you. You’re one hell of an agent. You’re incredibly beautiful and you have this fire that absolutely fascinates me, but maybe that’s all it is. Fascination.” He shrugged. “Besides, I think you have a little something more for someone else.” He smirked at me knowingly.

I frowned and opened my mouth, only to shut it again. Did I have something more for someone else?

“I don’t… What do you mean?” I asked him, genuinely perplexed.

Quill laughed out loud. “Come on!” he exclaimed “I thought you were smart. You cannot possibly be this dense!”

My frown deepened “Do not call me dense" I growled.

His laughter died down to chuckles and he bit his lip. He looked down at my mouth and quickly leaned forward to kiss me again, this time pressing me into the mattress. It was shorter this time and when he pulled back, he grinned widely even though I gave him a highly unimpressed look.

“Just checking.” He shrugged carelessly. “If you didn’t know you were in love with Anthony Lockwood, then maybe we could have given it a go anyway.” He winked at me and jumped out of bed, chuckling as he made his way to the bathroom. I frowned, contemplating what he said.

Lockwood.

Quill wasn’t wrong. I supposed I did have some feelings for Lockwood. But was it love?

I thought back on the years we had known each other. The irritation I felt whenever Holly was fawning over him. I thought about the months we had been separated and the reason I had left in the first place.

I thought about the butterflies I had felt when I had been kissed by Quill Kipps and I realised that I felt those same butterflies now. Only they didn’t come from being kissed. They came just from thinking of Lockwood.

I wondered how it would feel to kiss Lockwood then. At that thought, the butterflies grew into solid birds and that was when I knew what Quill meant.

Bloody hell.

I was in love with Lockwood.

And double hell, I needed to see him to ask for help to find the skull. How on earth would I be able to face him?

I was in love with Lockwood.

And I had kissed Quill Kipps.

I had _kissed_ Quill Kipps!

 _Quill Kipps_ had _kissed_ me. And _I_ had _kissed him back._

We had _kissed each other_.

_Quill bloody Kipps._

And I had _enjoyed_ it. I probably wouldn’t do it again, but I had enjoyed it. A lot. Because it _was_ bloody well more than good, but I was trying very hard to suppress that because while it was more than good, it was also Quill Kipps.

I groaned and covered my face in my hands, ignoring the sharp pain from my wound when I moved my arm. At least the skull hadn’t been here to witness it. I would never hear the end of it.

I felt the bed dip as Quill laid back down next to me. He gently peeled my hands off my face, and I was met by that soft smile of his. “Don’t worry about it, Lucy. It was my mistake. It was wrong of me. Especially when you’re injured. I don’t know how we came to lie so close. I swear I kept my distance when I went to sleep. I would have slept on the sofa, but you know how tiny that thing is. I wasn’t even able to lie down on it, but I promise that the next time you stumble through my door, grievously injured, I’m going to sleep on the floor. Or maybe I should buy a larger sofa “ He winked at me and I felt slightly better.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t _that_ horrible.” I grinned at him. “And I think I learned something.”

“You know what? I think we both did.” He smiled to himself. “And if you want, I think I'd like us to be friends.”

I snorted. “Aren’t we already though? It’s not just anyone I go to, to get patched up.”

Quill smirked “I suppose we are. It’s not just anyone who gets to destroy my sheets.” He grinned cheekily at me and gestured at all the blood around us. “Anyway, let’s go get some breakfast. I'm famished and you need to get your strength back.” He clapped his hands.

We got out of bed and Quill went downstairs. I desperately needed the bathroom. I didn’t have the courage to look in the mirror just yet, so I just took care of my business and limped down where Quill was busy cooking. He had two frying pans going, one with eggs and one with bacon. A lot of other more dubious items had been laid out on the counter, such as avocado and a sort of wholegrain, sugar free biscuits which I eyed with a suspicious sneer.

Quill turned around more cheerful than I think I’d ever seen him. It was quite surreal, especially since he still wasn’t wearing a damn shirt.

“So!” he clapped his hands again and smiled widely. I couldn’t help if a small giggle escaped me because at that moment, he reminded me so much of Lockwood. Both would be horrified by the comparison.

“You lost a lot of blood and we need to replenish that. That means food rich in iron, folic acid and vitamin c" he checked the three things with his fingers and my eyes narrowed.

“You should avoid too much calcium, so no milk products and no caffeine, so no coffee and _no tea_." he smiled sardonically at me.

“ _No tea_?! Are you daft? You can’t refuse me _tea_!” I spluttered.

He shrugged with a smirk “Too bad. I've already hidden it. And I already had my coffee. We have a lovely orange juice though" he teased.

I scooped up some egg with my fork and lobbed it at him, watching in satisfaction as it landed in his hair. He only laughed though.

We sat down in front of each other at the small kitchen table and started eating. Quill started listing food items I ought to eat and what to avoid and I must admit that I tuned out most of it.

“Another thing that would be great for you is broccoli. Its nutrition value is off the charts!”

“Oh god, you sound like Holly,” I groaned. “I will not subject myself to eating broccoli. Can’t I just take some supplements and be done with it?”

Quill shook his head “Come on, Lucy. There’s nothing wrong with eating healthy.”

I took a slice of bacon in protest and was about to throw another lump of egg at him when the sound of a key in the lock interrupted us. In less than a second, the door opened to reveal little Bobby Vernon. He hadn’t seen us yet. I took in the situation and realised how horribly domestic it must have looked from an outsider’s perspective. Me in Quill's clothes, with hair looking like a bird’s nest, obviously having spent the night and Quill still in nothing but pyjama pants and the egg that was still stuck in his hair, sitting together eating breakfast.

We both sat frozen in our seats, wide-eyed as if we had been caught with the hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

Bobby finally looked up from the papers he had brought and took in the scene.

For several seconds we were all frozen in place. The only movement was Bobby Vernon’s eyes that slowly expanded to impossible proportions.

“I’m so sorry Lucy. I forgot he had a key" Quill mumbled, breaking the spell somewhat. He scratched his neck. “Listen, Bobby, this isn’t what it looks like.”

“Quill! That’s probably the worst thing you could say" I hissed at him. “That’s what all guilty people say and we're not _guilty of anything_!”

He smirked ever so slightly and raised an eyebrow in my direction in a way that he must have known aggravated me immensely.


	3. Adrift

Bobby still stood, wide-eyed. I started doubting if he was even breathing.

In the end, Quill decided to take pity on the boy and got up. He steered him by the shoulders and pushed him down on a chair next to him. “Look Bobby,” he pointed at me “she’s injured. I just helped her last night and her clothes were uh – damaged.” He patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. And shrugged at me.

Bobby seemed to relax a little as he took in the cuts on my face and the bandage on my arm, but he still eyed me with suspicion.

“I've got those papers you asked for. About _you know what_.” He told Quill slowly, still looking at me with distrust as if he was afraid that I might jump up and strangle him or start singing the opera. I couldn’t blame him too much though. Last time I had worked with him, he had ended up staying at the hospital for a week. I _had_ saved his life, but I had also been the one to endanger it in the first place.

I winced internally but rolled my eyes and returned to my eggs. The two colleagues had a whispered conversation that ended with Bobby leaving. He left his papers exactly out of my reach, staring at me the entire time.

“Bye Bobby!” I waved cheerfully with my good arm.

Quill snorted when the boy closed the door “You know, I was about to repeat my offer for you to get on my team, but it seems like one of my colleagues doesn’t entirely agree"

“Didn’t you also say that you only got the worst assignments?” I raised a sceptical eyebrow.

“Yeah.” He smiled ruefully. “To be honest, I don’t think I'll stay much longer.”

“Really?” I questioned, quite shocked. I always imagined that Quill Kipps would die in his uniform with his rapier in hand. He was always so proud to be a part of Fittes Agency.

“Yeah.” He sighed deeply. “Being supervisor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know. It’s no fun, not being able to participate. And it’s frankly terrifying, not being able to see anything, you can’t even imagine…” He trailed off staring into space and I covered his hand with my good one.

“My Sight was just as good – if not better than Tony’s and then one day it’s just gone.” He seemed lost in thought and turned our hands around to trace the lines of my palm with his fingers.

“And after Ned died on my watch – it’s just not the same. I uh – I think I might not really be cut out to be an Agent. At least not anymore.” He admitted with a shrug.

“In that respect, Tony is right. If you ever tell him that I agree with him on anything I will have to kill you, no matter how much I like you. Just a warning.” He looked at me with mock seriousness and I pretended to lock my lips and throw away the keys.

“Tony _is_ right though,” he continued. “A good leader is part of the team, leading them as the first in line in the field. I try to stay with them, and I desperately want to keep my team safe, but without my Talents, I usually hinder more than I help. The only thing I can really do these days is send kids to their deaths and I don’t know if I can keep doing that anymore.” He looked into my eyes and the melancholy coming off him was profound,

“But then what am I supposed to do? Who the hell am I if I’m not an Agent?” He chuckled bitterly. And I could relate. By god I could relate. It was the recurring nightmare of all Agents. What were we without our flares and rapiers? Who were we without our Talents? I only had a couple of years left too. Unless I was extremely lucky, which no one ever was.

I didn’t think. I just stood and walked over to put my arms around him. He stood and he hugged me back. We clung to each other desperately. What we didn’t know was that Bobby Vernon stood, staring at us through the window.

“You could do many things, Quill. You’re a great medic for one. Or you could team up with Holly and make things with whole grain and vegetables.” I whispered into his shoulder. He snorted and pulled back a little, resting his forehead on mine. His eyes were closed, and we stood there for a while, finding comfort in each other. It was daunting, this uncertainty. I supposed we were both drifting somewhat. At least he had some skills that were useful in other fields than being an Agent. I had nothing – I hadn’t even finished my schooling.

When we separated, Quill was quick to turn around and make himself busy with tidying up. “You should go to have a shower.” He told me, not looking up from his task. “There are towels under the sink in the bathroom. But make sure you don’t get the bandage wet.”

I rolled my eyes but did what I was told. I limped upstairs, leaning on the hand railing. When I reached the shower, I was slightly put out when I realised that I had to use his shampoo and body wash, but I still had blood on me in several places, so soap was certainly needed, even if it made me smell like him. It wasn’t awful like what I remembered he had used previously. I had even quite enjoyed it when we were lying close together. I blushed a bit at that thought. It was familiar but I’d had a hard time pinning it down.

Now as I smelled it directly from the bottle, I realised how I knew it. It reminded me of a bush in a small clearing in a forest close to my old home. I would often go there for rapier practice during the daytime when no one else was home. I would slash at an old oak tree until the sweat was dripping from my back and my hand was full of blisters and then I would lie under that bush looking up at the sky until I caught my breath again.

Sometimes in the summer when the days were long, I would doze off, staring at clouds and pretending that I didn’t have to fight ghosts in the evening. It was a special place to me. Privacy was hard to come by in a family of eight and I had never shown this sanctuary to anyone. Not even Mary.

I huffed a little laugh. Quill would probably have kittens if I told him that his no doubt expensive shower products made him smell like a quaint country village in the north.

After the annoying task of washing my hair with one arm stretched, I towelled myself off and I finally looked in the mirror. How the hell Quill had ever gotten the idea to kiss me was beyond me. I had dozens of cuts on my face and countless bruises all over. A lot of them in places he would never ever see, but still.

I was about to put the same clothes back on but changed my mind quickly though when I realised that it was full of dried blood. Instead, I wrapped a towel around me. I walked into the bedroom, still a little dizzy and feeling fatigued, I had to sit down. Quill might be right about the iron, but I wasn’t so desperate that I was going to start eating broccoli.

“Quill?” I called downstairs. I heard him taking two steps at a time. When he arrived, he stopped short at the entrance. He blinked several times and blushed when he realised, I was only wearing a towel. He clapped a hand in front of his eyes. I appreciated the gesture even though I caught him peeking between his fingers.

“You uh - needed something?”

“I don’t have any clothes.” I mumbled.

“Right" he breathed. “I'll find you some stuff.” He didn’t move. “You know, you probably shouldn’t get too used to calling me Quill, however nice I might find it. Your other friends probably won’t appreciate it. Especially Tony.” He bit his lip.

I sighed in contemplation. “They might not at first. But the thing about friends is that they support each other. And if a row about another friend is enough to break a friendship, then maybe it wasn’t such a strong one anyway.”

Quill gave up on the charade of covering his eyes and let his hand fall. He stared at me with a strange expression. “You would risk that? For me?”

I huffed. “You literally rescued me yesterday. Of course, I would.”

He quirked a small smile. “I would hug you, but I have a feeling that it would end badly.” He gestured at the towel. “But if you really mean that we might as well go all in" his lips turned up in a wicked smile that instantly had me on edge.

“What do you mean?” I shifted nervously.

He smiled innocently and I gave him a slight scowl. “I mean that I’m going to find some clothes for you to wear. You are going _directly_ to Portland Row, right?” He went to rummage around in a closet. I looked over his shoulder but couldn’t make sense of it. By some miracle, he pulled out a fresh t-shirt. It was naturally grey with the Fittes logo proudly stamped on the chest. I rolled my eyes. If I hadn’t already worn a blank shirt of his, I would have thought he only had Fittes merchandise in his wardrobe.

“Just stay here. I have an extra kit for the entire team downstairs and I _know_ that Kate keeps an extra pair of pants in there.”

I wrinkled my nose “But Godwin and I aren’t _nearly_ the same size.”

“No, they might be a little snug.” He shrugged “Kat doesn’t have half the arse you do.” He grinned and winked at me.

I shook my head. The whole situation felt surreal. Was he still flirting with me? It wasn’t more than a minute before Quill came running back up the stairs, carrying a pair of ridiculously small looking pants. I was relieved to find that they were quite elastic.

“Smart! I always wondered how you worked in those tight pants.” I remarked, studying the fabric.

Quill smirked at me teasingly “And why, pray tell miss Carlyle, were you checking out the tightness of my pants in the first place?” he asked as he kneeled in front of me and started bandaging my ankle

I choked on air and knew I had blushed to the point of looking like a fire hydrant. Both from his remark and the position he was in. I would put that down to the coughing fit.

“I just – I meant Fittes agents! _In general_!” I spluttered when I could speak again.

“Sure, you did.” He grinned at me and it was infectious. I shook my head at him. At the rate things were going, Quill Kipps had saved my life only to be the death of me. I had no idea what to do with this side of him. Thankfully, he left me so I could get dressed in peace.

The tight pants might have been stretchy, but they were still a pain to pull up over my fresh bandage. The new t-shirt was too big and hung almost halfway down my thighs. I wrinkled my nose at the unicorn on the front, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

I went downstairs to find him rifling through another wardrobe. He pulled something out and ran his hands over it with a fond smile. I realised that it was a silver-grey jacket. Part of the Fittes uniform. It was too small for him and I wondered who it belonged to. He saw me approaching and held up the jacket in front of me. He bit his lip when he looked down. His own name was embroidered in beautiful calligraphy on the chest with silver thread. I realised it must have been an old uniform of his and I wondered if he had kept them all through his career as he grew out of them.

“Your own jacket is ruined and it’s freezing outside,” he shrugged.

He held it up and gestured for me to turn around so he could help me put it on. The lining was soft and silky, and the entire thing was surprisingly flexible. The uniforms of the Fittes Agency had always struck me as being rather stiff and I hadn’t been lying, I really had wondered how on earth they were able to move properly and fight in those things. He turned me back around and smirked widely, closing the clasps.

“I _always_ knew you’d look good in one of these. Didn’t I tell you?” He grinned in satisfaction as he looked me up and down, his eyes lingering a bit on his own name.

He met my eyes and I frowned. “Quill, are you – are you flirting with me?” I asked, not entirely certain.

“Yes.” He shrugged unapologetically.

“But why?” I questioned. I thought we had already determined that nothing more was going to happen, and I wanted to be sure we were on the same page.

“Because it’s fun" he shrugged again. “And because it’s going to seriously piss off Tony.” He grinned. “And I’m going to continue to do it until Tony finally snaps and makes his move or until you explicitly tell me to sod off.”

I chuckled and shook my head.

“Only one thing missing.” Quill winked and took me by the hand, leading the way into his living room. I noticed that a mushed pillow and a crumpled blanket lay in each end of the small sofa near the fireplace, giving evidence that he did indeed try to sleep there. I looked between him and the sofa and struggled not to laugh. He wasn’t the tallest person in the world, but his legs must have been hanging over the armrest. He caught my eyes and only shrugged.

“Here.” We had reached a display case with rapiers, each more ostentatious than the next. I rolled my eyes. Only Quill Kipps would keep his spares on display like this. In his defence, they were very pretty and extremely flashy. He opened the display to let me choose.

“No.” I protested. “This,” I gestured up and down myself, “is already too much. And I'll never hear the end of it. You don’t have something a little less…” I winced.

He snorted and shook his head at me. “I don’t get you Lucy Carlyle" He chuckled and took me through another door leading down to the basement where he apparently kept his training room and stock. Along one wall, rows and rows of shelves held carefully organised supplies like salt, chains and flares. There was also a row of briefcases which I recognised as part of the standard Fittes outfit. They always struck me as wildly impractical and I supposed I wasn’t the only one who thought so because I did spot a well-worn rucksack in a corner.

Quill had gone to a case that stood on the farthest wall. I was surprised by the content. Other than the standard rapiers, it also contained a wide assortment of weapons like daggers, a crossbow, a mace of all things and an honest to god scythe stood in a corner a few feet away. There was also a set of four beautiful silver throwing knives, not unlike the one that had made the wound on my arm. I thought back to the time I had thrown my rapier across a graveyard to prevent the ghost of the late Dr Bickerstaff from killing George. I had to admit that it had been a cool move and it would be useful to be able to do it another time. I ran a finger down one of them and absently wondered how often he cleaned his weapons because they were incredibly shiny.

“Take them" Quill pulled me out of my thoughts. He was looking at me with a soft smile.

“What?” I looked up at him.

“The throwing knives, you twit. Keep them. And you can have this. Plebian enough for you?” he asked me with an eyeroll as he offered me a battered old rapier that I felt much more comfortable with than the glitzy things he kept in the living room.

“Perfect" I smiled widely. He grabbed a fully stocked belt from one of the shelves and looped it around me with practiced ease. He attached both the rapier and the throwing knives to it.

“There.” He nodded in satisfaction. “I already called you a taxi to take you to Portland Row. It should be here any minute.”

I frowned “You shouldn’t have, I haven’t any -"

“I’m paying for it of course,” he interrupted me with an eyeroll. “You’re still bloody weak and I won’t have you collapsing in a gutter somewhere after all my hard work patching you up.”

“You could come with me.” I suggested but was met with laughter.

“And be within striking distance of Anthony Lockwood when he sees you dressed like that? No thank you, I like my face as it is. You’re on your own.” He winked at me and I started to get the feeling that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“I'd love to have photos though. Do you think Cubbins would be willing to take a few snapshots?” He grinned at me wolfishly.

We ascended the stairs slowly with Quill supporting me, and just as we reached the top, a horn sounded from outside, signalling the arrival of my taxi.

“Just a second.” Quill left me in the hall. Supposedly to get money for the taxi and hopefully put on a bloody shirt.

I put on my boots, loosening the laces on the left one to accommodate my bandaged ankle. When I got back up, I was hit by vertigo and had to lean against the wall. I had just righted myself when Quill returned, thankfully dressed but carrying a camera. He took a photo of me, thus eternalising the deepest scowl I have ever achieved without stabbing something.

The taxi honked again and we both went outside. Quill held the door open for me, kissed me on the cheek and whispered “Good luck" with a smirk. The bastard.

Before I could tell him off, he had slammed the door and the taxi was driving away with me.


	4. 35 Portland Row

The drive was largely uneventful aside from me learning a new swearword when a lorry backed out in front of us unexpectedly.

I disliked taking a taxi during the day. In the night-time it was always far less crowded and thus the drive would always be faster. The only benefit was that the drivers were less nervous during the day, but they were still equally sweaty. Now it was just from aggravation due to the heavy traffic rather than anxiety.

Quill was right - I was still weak from my ordeal and had almost fallen back asleep when we arrived at 35 Portland Row, even though the drive was relatively short. I almost stumbled when I got out of the taxi but managed to right myself before falling flat on my face.

I pushed through the gate and carefully limped up the tiled pathway to the house. I rang the bell and waited. Not long after, I heard the thuds of George’s heavy footfalls and I held my breath when he opened the door.

“Now what would a Fittes agent be doing at Portland -"

“Hi George. Can I come in?” I interrupted him as he'd obviously only seen the jacket.

“Lucy?” George blinked and ripped off his glasses. He rubbed them furiously with his shirt as if they had somehow betrayed him. He put them back on and looked at me again with absolute horror painted on his face.

“Oh, Lucy. Please tell me you didn’t...” he trailed off.

I blushed. “Didn’t what?”

He just shook his head at me and opened the door wider to let me in. He frowned when he saw me limping and automatically supported me as we walked up the hall to the kitchen. He narrowed his eyes at the cuts on my face and sniffed around me like a dog several times and wrinkled his nose but didn’t say anything.

When we reached the kitchen, the other two parts of Lockwood and co were seated at the table. It seemed that I had interrupted their breakfast. George returned to his familiar seat, but I stopped short at the entrance, taking it all in.

All the familiar things and all the unfamiliar ones that felt wrong.

Never hesitate at the threshold, Lucy.

I felt like turning around and running away. Possibly chasing down a dangerous type two on my own, but I stood still, frozen in place by the dumbfounded stares of my former teammates.

George looked at my still wet hair.

Holly’s eyes darted between Lockwood and myself, and I think she was holding her breath.

Lockwood’s own stare was fixated on something just above my chest.

I sighed, wanting to break the tension. “Listen, this isn’t what it looks like.” I started and face-palmed internally. Worst sentence ever.

“Well, what do _you_ think it looks like, Lucy?” George huffed. His jaw was working but he wasn’t eating. He was furious.

“To me, it looks as if you’ve spent quite some time with Quill Kipps.” Lockwood stated, with a strangely empty voice. He wasn’t smiling; his face was carefully blank.

“Well that part is true I suppose.” I shrugged. Lockwood looked away from me and Holly’s eyes widened. “Quill helped stitching me up last night.”

I sighed and was hit by sudden exhaustion. I had to lean a little against the doorframe.

“Wait, since when is he “Quill” and not “Pompous Prick"?” George remarked.

I huffed in irritation but blushed slightly as I thought about the exact moment he turned into Quill inside my head. It was somewhere between his teeth and his tongue. “I tell you I needed to be stitched up last night, and _that’s_ the thing you focus on?”

He shrugged. “Sorry. I just have a hard time thinking when you’re wearing that ridiculous costume.”

“I’m going to need help taking off the jacket.” I grumbled with an accompanying eye roll.

Holly practically jumped out of her seat to assist me. With some difficulty, I opened the ridiculously complicated clasp of the belt and took it off, holding it carefully in in the hand of my good arm. I took a slow step forward, conscious not to wobble too much. She went behind me and grabbed the fabric of the shoulders and pulled it down in a brisk move.

I uttered a hiss and a curse when she reached my injury. She whispered a small “Oh" and slowed down, careful not to jostle the arm too much.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Lockwood when he saw the large bandage that covered my entire underarm or it might have been from the Fittes t-shirt I was wearing. I didn’t know. It was the first sound he had uttered for a while.

I limped to the nearest available seat and Holly supported me automatically. Still, I fell into the chair more than sat down on it.

It was as if they hadn’t quite realised that I was actually hurt until that time. George frowned and Lockwood’s carefully blank mask changed into a look of concern.

Holly sat back down and studied me, obviously worried. She fidgeted and looked like she would love nothing more than to start fussing over me but thought I wouldn’t welcome it. To be honest, I could do with being fussed over a bit.

“How bad is it underneath the bandage?” she asked quietly.

I showed the approximate length with my fingers. I could just about manage it if I stretched my thumb and my index as much as possible, “Twelve stitches.”

George’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead and Lockwood frowned.

“But how? – why?” he asked, finally focusing on the real problem. “With an injury like that, why didn’t you go to the hospital? Or come here even. We could have -"

“The people who were hunting me last night, very much wanted me dead. They knew they had injured me so the next logical step for them would be to search the hospitals. And I had lost a lot of blood. I could barely stand, much less walk too far. Quill lives in Clerkenwell, close to where I ended up and I know he’s a trained medic and he brings the equipment home with him because he’s too lazy to go back to the office after cases,” I gave a little snort of amusement, “incidentally, that’s also the only reason he even lives in Clerkenwell, because he can get home faster after dropping off Sources there.”

Lockwood cleared his throat, “Exactly how often do you visi-"

“Lucy, would you like something to drink?” Holly interrupted with a slightly stiff smile.

“Yes please, Holly. I would kill for a cup of tea.” I groaned.

She looked at me with that kind of pitying and slightly condescending air that I hated with a passion. “Lucy, if you lost so much blood, it’s better if you don’t drink anything with caffeine. It inhibits the iron absorption you know.”

“Not you too.” I whined and slouched in the chair.

“You could have some chamomile. Or orange juice.” She suggested.

“You can piss off with your orange juice.” I grumbled so quietly that the others hopefully thought it was just a prolonged groan.

“But what happened, Lucy?” George asked, interrupting my self-pity and my plotting how to get a proper cup of bloody tea.

I sighed heavily, trying to organise the jumbled mess my mind was.

I started by telling them about the case with the mouldy skull and how I had given it to Harold Mailer to incinerate it. How he had seen the skull in my rucksack and made remarks about it. How someone broke into my small flat in Tooting and stole the skull. My confrontation with Harold Mailer and later meeting his ghost with its gory and somewhat unhelpful message about _the place of blood_. I told them about the three men who attacked me and how I escaped them.

I told them how Quill helped me last night and how my clothes were destroyed. I skirted over a lot of details from the events that morning. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything.

“I would like to ask for your help in getting the skull back.” I finished, looking at each of them in turn.

“Why not ask Kipps?” Lockwood asked me. He pressed his lips together in a thin line and I couldn’t contain a scoff.

“Quill doesn’t know about the skull. You’re the only ones. But does that mean you don’t want to help me?” I didn’t understand what his problem was, and his attitude hurt more than the wound on my arm.

I thought we had worked well together on the Ealing Cannibal case and as far as I was concerned, we had finished on good terms.

Lockwood huffed and was about to respond but was interrupted by George who squeezed my knee and scowled at his boss.

“Of course, we’ll help you. That’s what friends are for. Right Lockwood?” he ground out. I was grateful for the unexpected support. George was the one person who had seemed to have a problem with me the last time we met and now here he was, backing me up.

Lockwood himself stared at his hands without speaking for a long time. “Are you staying with Kipps?” he asked me so quietly that I had a hard time picking up on it. He didn’t look at me.

I sighed heavily. I obviously couldn’t go back to my flat. Those people knew where I lived after all. “I had hoped to stay here.” I mumbled. “But if you barely want to help me with the skull, I can ask Qui-"

“Of course, you’ll stay here.” Lockwood rushed out, interrupting me. He clapped his hands together, suddenly all smiles. The change gave me whiplash. “We'll need to go and gather your things, but unfortunately we have a client coming in less than twenty minutes.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably and shifted around a bit which I found very odd. I couldn’t think of a time I had ever seen him squirm before. “Er, George – didn’t you say at one point that you found some of Lucy’s clothes in the laundry a while back?”

Holly frowned. “Lockwood, that was yourse-"

“I was thinking that you might want to get out of that... get-up.” Lockwood interrupted, awkwardly gesturing at my entire body.

Several quiet moments ensued. I didn’t know what to do from here.

“Right,” George sighed and broke the silence. “If we’re quite done with the most awkward interaction of the century, I’m going to go tidy up the living room.”

Lockwood looked like he was about to protest. I doubted it would be to George’s intentions of tidying up, so probably to his claims about the situation being awkward. George wasn’t wrong.

Regardless, George cut him off with a hand movement. “Holly, are you with me? Then you can help Lucy to her room, Lockwood. She looks dead on her feet.” He left with Holly hesitantly trailing after him.

Lockwood huffed with petulance “Since when did George become the boss?”

I snorted quietly “Hasn’t he always been?” I smiled a little. “Anyway, you don’t have to help if you don’t want to.” I sighed, not quite over his dismissive attitude.

I got up, ignoring the throbbing in my ankle. I leaned against the table for a moment, waiting for the vertigo to pass.

“Don’t be daft, Lucy. Of course, I’ll help you.” He scoffed softly and gave me a little smile before getting up and standing next to me. He put his head under my arm and halfway carried me to the stairs.

“You smell different.” He remarked with a nose wrinkle.

I rolled my eyes. “Trust me, it’s a vast improvement from last night. I’m surprised Quill even recognised me as dirty as I was.”

Lockwood stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at me closely. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, obviously at war with himself. “Lucy,” he started hesitantly, and it seemed that all my internal organs gathered in my chest. I couldn’t breathe when he looked me like that. “There isn’t anything... going on... between you and Kipps, is there?” he looked at me in almost the same way as when he had come to my flat to ask for my help on the Ealing Cannibal case. Sad and somehow hopeful.

“No.” I breathed. “No, I don’t think so.”

He frowned a little and heaved a sigh. “Well. Let’s get you to bed.”

We clumsily made it up the stairs and Lockwood hurried to remove George’s clothes from my old bed. I was exhausted and flopped down on it, fully dressed, boots and all. I could barely keep my eyes open.

Lockwood frowned. I think in concern. He gently pushed a lock of hair away from my face. “I’m going to hunt down those clothes of yours.”

“No,” I slurred. “This is fine. I don’t think I would be able to change without help right now anyway.”

“Oh,” he turned pink. “Did you uh... have help before?” he asked, trying and failing at being casual.

“No.” I sighed, feeling myself drifting off. The last thing I registered before floating away, was Lockwood kneeling at my feet, gently peeling off my boots. I hoped my feet didn’t smell too bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel the need to say that all that with injury and blood loss is based on personal experience. I had emergency surgery once and lost a lot of blood. Rather than giving me a transfusion, they decided that I could replenish my blood cells via my diet and brought in a nutritionist. The injury was awful, but the diet came a very close second.


	5. No Rest For The Wicked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting off this chapter with someone else's POV before switching back to miss Carlyle

_Quill:_

It was mid-afternoon when I slipped into my office at the agency. Having an office was something I had been immensely proud of when I had first been promoted. Youngest division leader in Fittes history, with my own office, my own division, my own team and my own… paperwork. I sighed heavily as I closed the door behind me. I leaned against it and thought about the discussion from that morning. It felt like the walls were closing in on me. Before I could wallow in too much self-pity, a throat cleared, and I realised with a start that I wasn’t alone.

“I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“Kate” I sighed, calming down slightly.

She was sitting, suave as ever in one of the two chairs in front of my desk, leaned back and with her legs crossed, her hair cut as sharp as the blade of a guillotine. The perfect image of cool casualness. I knew her better than most though. From the slight pursing of her lips, I could see that she was ticked off about something.

I went behind my desk and tried to stifle a yawn. I hadn’t had more than a few hours last night and even though I was woken up in a _very_ pleasant way, I could have done with a little more rest. Rest wasn’t to be for the wicked though. The pile of papers that had accumulated on my desk over the past forty-eight hours I had been off was frankly alarming.

“Busy night?” Kate asked innocently.

I snorted. Busy night, busy morning, busy day. “You might say that.”

“Huh. I thought you had the night off.” She looked at me with a perfectly plucked eyebrow raised not more than a millimetre.

“Yes.” I confirmed slowly, getting the distinct feeling that I was walking straight into a trap.

Kate nodded. “So, when does she start?” she huffed.

“What? Who?” I frowned in confusion.

“Carlyle. When are you going to replace me?” her lips hardened, and I could see her jaw working.

“I don’t know what you’re –“ I started, and suddenly realised what she meant. “Lucy isn’t coming on the team, Kate.”

She leaned forward, scowling at me. “Then tell me, what other reason she has to be at your house this morning.”

“Damnit, Bobby” I cursed to myself.

Kate’s eyes rose high on her forehead. “So, it’s true. Bobby’s mind isn’t addled. He seemed quite out of it; I didn’t know what to believe. He was almost incoherent.”

I squeezed my eyes together and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to figure out what to tell her. A massive headache was thundering my way.

“Oh my God! I don’t believe it.” Kate leaned back in her chair in wide-eyed shock. “How long have you been together? And right under everyone’s noses. Is that why she left Lockwood?”

“No!” I blurted, needing to set the record straight. “No, Kate, that’s not how it is! She was just – she was... robbed.” I finished lamely.

Kate raised a sceptical eyebrow “Uh-huh. And these robbers just happened to steal her clothes as well.” she deadpanned.

“I'm going to wring Bobby’s scrawny little neck" I ground out. “She was injured, okay?” I snapped. “It was a violent attack and some of her clothes were destroyed and all of it was covered in blood.” I would know. I had spent most of the morning cleaning away blood stains and doing laundry.

“Is she okay?” Kate frowned in concern. Not an emotion most people thought she was capable of, but Kate Godwin was surprisingly compassionate.

“She’s as well as can be expected. I sent her to Tony’s.” Reluctantly, I had to admit to myself.

Kate nodded slowly. “Did you kiss her?” she asked out of the blue and I felt my cheeks heating up. Well, hell. I rubbed my face with my hands and took a deep breath.

“Kate, you know I would never lie to you, right?” I asked, my voice muffled behind my palms.

“Yes.” Kate leaned forward, extremely interested in where the conversation was going.

“Then stop asking any more bloody questions!” I groaned. To be honest it probably sounded more like a whine.

Kate grinned. “You _so did_! And, you want to do it again, don’t you?”

I blushed even more. That girl was too nosy for her own good. And mine. “Get to work!” I barked. I needed her out of there.

She chuckled and stood. When she reached the door, she paused at the handle.

“You know you can tell me anything, right? I won’t tell anyone else.”

“I know.” I sighed, resting my head in my hands.

“So you can tell me things like the fact that you’ve been attracted to Lucy Carlyle since you met her and that you fell in love with her when she saved you from Albert Joplin.” She told me quietly.

She left before I could deny her charges. All the same really.

I groaned and banged my head on the table.

…

_Lucy:_

When I woke up, I could see that someone had been productive. A set of my clothes that I hadn’t seen for a while was lying neatly on the chair next to me. Holly’s doing no doubt; none of the boys would ever be able to fold paper so precisely, let alone fabric.

Two bags stood just inside the door, stuffed to the point of ripping. I recognised those bags as the exact same ones I had carried down the stairs a few months ago when I left. Someone must have gone to my flat to pick up my things, but by the looks it, ALL my belongings were now back at Portland Row. Not just a few sets of clothes and my toothbrush. Someone was certainly expecting that I would stay for a while here. Did I want to?

I sat up and realised that I felt a bit better. The arm was still giving off a dull ache and I imagined that it would soon be time to check the wound. Maybe Holly could help me. I was still wearing the clothes I had arrived in and the pants were starting to feel too tight. They were digging into the skin around my waist most uncomfortably. I pulled them down entirely and ran a finger down the pattern where the seam of the pants had left an imprint on my skin. I threw the pants carelessly across the room and frowned when they landed in the same spot the skull used to stand. I missed that stupid thing, but at the same time I knew it would have quite a few words to say about my decision-making skills over the past twenty-four hours. I sighed. I needed to get it back.

I looked down at the Fittes t-shirt I was still wearing and considered keeping it on, but regardless of how comfortable it was, it wasn’t worth the tension. I cursed Quill a little right then as he had no doubt done it on purpose, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was deeply grateful, and I appreciated him as a friend. At least, that’s what I told myself as I took the shirt off and folded it almost as nicely as Holly had done with my clothes. I could use it for sleeping in, I decided. That way no one else had to look at it.

I got to my feet and slowly tried to see how much of my weight my injured ankle could take and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was quite a lot better. I sat on the chair and carefully removed the bandage around it, revealing the bruised skin. I tried again and found that while it felt a little more unstable, I wasn’t screaming in agony. I went to the bathroom, still with a slight limp, but hopeful that I would make a fast recovery. I studied the small cuts on my face and was relieved to find that none of them seemed to be infected. I still looked pale as death though, and the bags under my eyes could be used as hammocks.

The sound of plates, cutlery and the smell of George’s lovely cooking brought me back to the world, along with Holly’s delicate footsteps on the stairs leading up to my room. She knocked on the door gently and walked in as I came out of the bathroom. When she saw me there, something in her must have snapped because she rushed over and gave me a hug. Nothing like the stiff, awkward interactions we had managed to have in the past, but something genuine and heart-felt. I squeezed her back a bit, even though she was pressing my ribs a little too hard to be entirely comfortable.

“I’m so happy you’re here” She sniffed into my shoulder. We stood for a few moments longer and I had to admit that it was nice. When we came apart, Holly’s eyes even looked a little wet.

“Lockwood and I uh – went to your flat.” She gestured unnecessarily at the bags at the door. “I’m sorry to tell you, but it was a mess. We took everything back with us because someone had broken down the door. They must have been looking for you. All your things had been thrown around. It was good that you had somewhere to um... stay... last night.” She pursed her lips.

“Yeah.” I breathed. “Yep. Quill is a good friend.” I could feel my cheeks going pink.” “Speaking of; do you think you could have a look at this?” I waved my arm in front of her a little. “I’m wondering if I need to change the bandage or something.”

She caught my hand and gave it a little squeeze “Sure,” she smiled at me “But _after_ dinner. There’s better light in the kitchen anyway. Do you need help getting down the stairs?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”

Holly hesitated at the door. “About this _thing_ with Kipps,” she bit her lip before continuing. “I think that Lockwood is-"

“DINNER!” George bellowed from downstairs, interrupting whatever Holly wanted to say.

“You’re not going to let George’s spaghetti go cold, are you?” Lockwood called and I heard him take a few steps up the stairs.

“Coming!” I yelled back but didn’t move. “You were saying?” I prompted Holly.

She shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s go have dinner.” She gave me a little smile. “Call me if you need any help.”

I nodded and she left. I stood still for a few seconds, contemplating the entire situation. I shook my head. Nothing made sense and I decided it was best not to analyse it too much. That would just drive me insane.

I made my way down the stairs, a little steadier on my feet than I had been when I went up.

While we ate, the others filled me in on the day’s events. A young boy of all people had travelled all the way from a small village on his own to ask for our help. Or _their_ help I guessed. They had rejected him. I appreciated the fact that Lockwood wanted to prioritize finding the skull, even if he seemed more motivated by the idea of the amount of publicity exposing a black-market ring dealing in stolen Sources could bring the company. It bothered me a little that others were put on standby because of my problem though. I wasn’t too chuffed about the way he spoke about the case either. As if working in a small village was somehow beneath him.

 _I_ was from a small village. Did that make me beneath him too?

“So!” Lockwood interrupted my musings. “We can all agree that it’s likely to be Winkman behind your attack, Lucy, yes?”

I nodded “I saw Flo the other day. She said that the Winkmans have been busy for a while. That someone, probably a collector is buying up a lot of Sources and the Winkmans are eager to provide. It would make sense if they had set up this operation.”

Lockwood gave me a small smile. “Of course, yes.”

“She also told me that the trading is going on in a huge scale. With actual markets and not just small back alley transactions and auctions.”

George was expressionless as always and Holly looked at me with intrigue. Lockwood didn’t look surprised though and I caught myself wondering how much information he was withholding from the team. He wasn’t exactly known to be the most forthcoming.

“What we need is an _in_. As it is, I’ve spoken to Flo as well this afternoon and I had to promise her my own weight in liquorice, but she has agreed to get two of us to the market. Or at least, she’ll show us where it is and then we need to get through the door.” Lockwood informed us.

“I should probably go.” I said with a smaller voice than I had intended. “I’m the only one who can actually hear the skull.”

“That’s what I thought,” Lockwood grinned. “It’s going to be you and me, Luce. Just like old times.” He winked at me and I blushed a little. “We’ll need to go in disguise, naturally and we need to bring something to trade with. Something good.”

I groaned internally. Lockwood was awful when it came to disguises and a horrible actor.

“Well, that won’t be a problem. With some time to prepare, we can each go on a few cases and keep some of the most powerful Sources.” I suggested.

Lockwood winced “About that – the meeting is tomorrow night.”

I almost choked on a piece of carrot “What?” I blinked and looked at him in disbelief. “Lockwood, I can barely walk as it is. My ankle won’t be healed by tomorrow evening”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, Lucy. If anything, the limp just adds to your disguise.” He grinned at me with that spark in his eye. The one he got when he was caught up by the thrill of the chase. I found myself smiling back. With way he was, with all the excitement he was emanating, it was hard not to be swept up by the whirlwind that was Anthony Lockwood.

“Sure, you’ll be absolutely _perfect_ ,” George remarked, his tone of voice laced with so much sarcasm it might as well be dripping. “It’s not like the Winkmans have a vendetta against you or anything. And they’ve _never_ met you before so there’s _zero_ chance of getting recognised.”

“It'll be fine, George. We’ll just do some reconnaissance and find out where they’re taking the sources and then we’ll come straight back out.” Lockwood waved him off.

George snorted “Oh yes because our missions _always_ go according to plan. And besides – A black-market ring dealing in sources is not our business! We’re an _agency_ , for Heaven’s sake!” he rubbed his glasses hard with the bottom of his shirt. “That’s for DEPRAC to deal with. Or have you forgotten they even exist?”

Lockwood shook his head vehemently “If we bring in DEPRAC, you know they’ll just foul it up. And they’ll take credit.”

“That’s none of our -"

“Besides,” Lockwood cut him off. “Say we did bring in DEPRAC. Say they took down the ring – the skull is still there. That skull is in an old jar sealed with the Fittes logo. DEPRAC are going to want to know where the hell they got such an item from. They’ll start interrogating people. If the people who stole the skull are there, they can incriminate Lucy and in turn incriminate you.” He pointed out. “After all, where else should Lucy have gotten it from, but a disgruntled former Fittes employee? No, we need to get that skull back and we need to do it ourselves.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how do you guys like it so far?


	6. Time for Tea

After dinner, Holly and I sat at the kitchen table. She had dug out the first aid kit and covered the thinking cloth with a clean kitchen towel. She was gently peeling off the bandage, revealing the stitched wound. I winced a little when she pulled, but I could take it. A memory echoed in my mind.

 _Come on Carlyle don’t go soft on me now_. _I know you’re tougher than that._

A little blood had seeped through into the bandage, but it wasn’t too bad for a rushed job done on someone’s bed.

“Lucy,” Holly breathed once she saw the full extent of the injury. “How deep was this?”

“Deep enough.”

“I have to say that Kipps did a good job.” She admitted when she studied the wound. She gently wiped away the small amount of dried blood on the skin around the stitches. It stung and tickled near the stitches in a way that made me a bit nauseous.

I heard Lockwood coming in from the living room. He hissed when he came up behind me. “That looks bad, Luce. But it’s going to leave a cool scar" he squeezed my shoulder and I grinned.

“If you think this is bad, you should have seen it yesterday.” I snorted. “I absolutely _destroyed_ Quill's sheets.”

Lockwood coughed and his squeeze turned into an awkward pat. “Right. Tea, anyone?”

“Yes, please!” I smiled gratefully up at him.

Holly cleared her throat “Lucy can have chamomile or the decaffeinated one I bought for her earlier.”

My head whipped around so I could look at her “You bought tea? Especially for me?”

She smiled gently and nodded before going back to her task of taking care of my wound.

Heaven knows that Holly and I hadn’t seen eye to eye. We had gone from awkwardness to openly hostile to tentative acceptance and now friends I guessed? I was truly touched by her gesture. She had probably just grabbed something while she was out shopping anyway, but she had thought of me and done something special. I gave her a hug which was slightly awkward because I could only hold her with one arm.

“Thank you, Holly.”

She only smiled at me when we separated and went about her task with my arm again. Lockwood was busying himself with the tea. He had small rituals every time he made tea when we were at home. I suppose we all probably have, but Lockwood’s way of making tea is something to be observed. In everything he did, he was a swift ball of energy that never seemed to stand still, and tea was no different.

Whenever anyone puts the kettle on, there’s this stretch of time from you put it on till the water boils. That time is something special because it feels like a sort of pocket – a hole, a time out of time. What you do with that time, matters.

During this waiting time, I would probably draw. Many of the rude sketches on the thinking cloth had come to life in that time out of time.

George reads and takes notes and then he gets so absorbed in his reading that he forgets all about the tea.

Holly tidies. It’s always obvious when Holly has made tea because everything is so shiny. In a way, we all spend this time in a similarly to how we spend the rest of our time, but in a condensed sort of way.

Lockwood had something about cups though. He would spend ages trying to find the right cup for everyone. We all had our preferences amongst our many mismatched novelty cups, and he knew very well who liked what, but that didn’t mean you were going to get it. And sure enough, he was standing at the cupboard, holding out a mauve atrocity in front of me with one eye closed. Likely trying to determine if the colours matched.

I found myself wondering how Quill made tea. What did he do when he was waiting for the water? Did he read? Did he tidy like Holly? No; knowing him, there wouldn’t be anything to tidy up. He wasn’t the type to leave the dishes in the sink. He certainly wouldn’t be matching different cups to people because his were all the same anyway. It made me want to bring my favourite one with me next time I saw him. An ugly and quaint ceramic one to cause disruption between all his white porcelain. He would no doubt turn his nose up at it.

My stomach did a small flop. Somehow, the idea of visiting him on purpose was different from ending up there by coincidence. I smiled a little to myself. I should probably visit one of these days to thank him. Maybe I would buy him a new set of sheets.

My thoughts unintentionally strayed to what we had done between the ruined ones and I blushed. Holly caught my eye and sent me a little smirk.

I wondered if she could read my mind.

Oh God, I hoped she couldn’t read my mind.

We spent the rest of the evening talking about the different cases we had worked on. They told me about their near-misses and every time the story turned to a particularly stupid or reckless move Lockwood had made, George gave me a significant look as if to say ‘ _see what I mean’_

I told them about the different teams I had worked with. I liked working with the Tamworth kids and Armstrong wasn’t too bad. Mellingcamp and Staines were okay. Bunchurch was incompetent, but that wasn’t news to anyone. I hadn’t worked directly with Fittes, but had been brought in on a joint venture from time to time and while they were quite uppity about the guidelines and didn’t tolerate too much deviation, they did seem to have at least a small bit of respect for their operatives. I swore that I would never work for Rotwell again though. It felt ironic that their Agents had no agency whatsoever. The adults ran the show, and they did so with an iron fist. I didn’t work independently only to be ordered around.

“That’s why Lockwood & co is the best place to be.” Lockwood winked at me.

I had walked straight into that one.

“You know that’s not why I left.” I shook my head slowly.

Lockwood nodded and smiled at me “I know you say that Lucy, but why –“

“I’m tired.” I cut him off. And I wasn’t lying. “I’m going to bed.” I stood up and ignored the disappointed faces of my friends. I wish we could stop talking about it. Or at least that they would accept the answer I had given them. I limped to the stairs unaided and when I reached the bottom, I turned towards them.

“Goodnight. Thank you so much for helping me and letting me stay here. But I really _am_ tired.” As if my body wanted to emphasise my point, a yawn overtook me.

The others mumbled small “’night’s” and up I went.

I rummaged for a while, trying to find my toothbrush amongst all the other things they had brought from my flat, but I didn’t bother unpacking. I still hadn’t decided what to do. I might get another flat somewhere or maybe I would stay. I got a lump in my throat and thought about the things Quill and I had talked about. All that uncertainty was eating away at me. As Lockwood said, there was no room for adults in this industry, and I planned on surviving long enough to become an adult. Maybe it was time to start making plans for the future. I could take classes during the daytime to gain some skills or take an education for when my Talents disappeared.

That idea calmed me a little. Maybe things weren’t so hopeless after all.

I sighed a little and sat on the bed where my hand brushed against something soft. It was the Fittes t-shirt I had folded so neatly. I indulged myself with a small smile. It was hard to understand that only that same morning, I had my very first kiss. I took off my skirt and leggings and changed shirts before sliding underneath the covers. Being all alone, I could allow myself to think back and dwell on the memory. I didn’t want the others to know and I was surprised to realise that it wasn’t because I felt ashamed about it and it wasn’t because I had any regrets, but this was private. That moment was mine and Quill’s alone and I didn’t want to share it.

I hugged myself and as I fell asleep there, alone in my bed, I couldn’t help but think that something was missing. I forced myself not to analyse it.

…

It had been early when I went to bed the day before and late when I woke up now. I didn’t have a clock in my room, but I estimated it was around noon. I dressed for the day and made my way downstairs only to be surprised when I passed the door to Jessica’s room which was wide open.

Holly and Lockwood were sitting on the floor, rifling through boxes. Lockwood looked up at me when he heard me coming closer. He smiled in that special way that made my stomach do funny things.

“There you are, Luce! We wanted to let you sleep in. You’re going to need your strength for tonight.” He winked at me. I was nervous about tonight, but when Lockwood looked at me like that; like he thought I was capable of anything, I _believed_ I was capable of anything. His confidence in me gave me confidence in myself.

“Come in!” he beckoned. “We were just looking through these things to find something to trade at the meeting tonight. What do you think?”

He pulled out something bright and colourful that didn’t strike me as a typical Source.

“Are those… feathers?”

Lockwood nodded eagerly and unfolded the thing. It was a sort of cloth.

George came up behind me. “Did you find anything then?” he asked over my shoulder.

“I’ve got two of them here. They’re capes,” Lockwood beamed. “Spirit-capes. Shamans and the like used them when they communicated with their dead ancestors.”

“They’re beautiful,” Holly breathed.

She was right. The feathers were bright and vibrant changing from blue to purple to green in the light from the window. I stroked the feathers with a finger and was surprised at how soft they were. I felt Lockwood’s warm hand through the material and my eyes snapped up to meet his. He was already looking at me with his brilliant smile.

“Look at the other side.” He whispered and I forgot all about Holly and George. I flipped the material and revealed tiny silver links that tied the feathers together. It was so well made, and the silver links were put together in a way that made it feel like a fabric. It was cool to the touch, except where Lockwood had warmed it with his hands.

“What do you think about bringing these to the market? They’re not Sources exactly, but I bet they’re interesting enough for the Winkmans,” he shrugged.

“Isn’t it a shame though? They’re so beautiful.” I protested, still caressing the material. I snatched my hand back when I realised that I was essentially caressing Lockwood’s hand as well.

“What use are they to us though?” he gave a sad little smile. “My parents were researchers, and they travelled the world, trying to understand the Problem through other cultures. They brought back all this stuff and most of it is just that. Stuff. Silly academics really.”

His smile had turned stiff and the nonchalance he spoke with was stilted.

I sighed. “Okay. We’ll take them then.” I still thought it was a shame, because they really were beautiful, but then again, Lockwood was right. It wasn’t like we were going to use them.

George cleared his throat and I suddenly remembered that we weren’t alone.

“Right!” he exclaimed with forced, sarcastic cheerfulness. “Now we just need to find some way to avoid you two getting killed in a horrible way.”

Lockwood practically jumped “I have just the stuff we need for disguises” he beamed and ran down the stairs.

Holly folded the cape and hung it on her arm. I sighed heavily and George patted my back in sympathy.

Lockwood and costumes. A horrible combination.


	7. Bedlam

As far as disguises go, this was not the worst I had seen Lockwood in. At least no sombreros were involved, and he wasn’t crossdressing this time. Not for lack of trying though, but under Holly’s kind but firm guidance, we had ended up with something not half-bad.

We were both in leather jackets, atrocious looking jerseys and torn and dirty jeans. All in all, I might have worn the same as I did the night of my attack. I imagine the effect was much the same. Holly had helped me wrap my ankle up tightly in hope to stabilise the injury as best as possible and it felt almost claustrophobic with how constricting it was.

The wigs were the worst though. They were horribly itchy and smelled disgusting. We had sent George out to dirty them up a bit. I had no desire to know what he had rolled them in.

We each had a satchel that George had gotten to work on too, though for all I know he might as well just have gone for a walk with Flo Bones.

To finish off, Holly had gotten to work with her make-up kit. Apparently, I looked horrible enough as I were, so she didn’t need to do much. I told myself that it was just because of the blood loss I was still suffering the effects from. That made me feel a bit better.

She worked for almost half an hour on Lockwood though. Now we just needed to get him to stop smiling so much. Relic-men generally weren’t such a cheerful bunch.

Holly and George stood, taking in the full effect of our disguises to see if we were missing anything.

George rubbed his glasses, only to find that they had gotten dirtier because he had gotten mud on the bottom of his shirt while fixing up our stuff. He cursed and went to change.

Holly fidgeted and bit her lip. It was a nervous habit of hers. “Weapons. You need _something_ , I don’t like the idea of you going in unarmed.”

“We can’t exactly bring our rapiers, Holly” Lockwood pointed out.

George came back while still in the process of putting on a new shirt, giving us a full view of his belly. I squeezed my eyes together, trying to unsee it.

It didn’t work.

“Hol’s right.” He said, his voice muffled by the shirt he was pulling down over his face. “You need something. Relic-men are generally armed to the teeth.”

I thought about bringing the set of silver throwing knives Quill had given me but dismissed the idea fairly quickly. There was a high risk of losing them since we might get searched and they were probably also far too flashy compared to the rest of the disguise.

We ended up bringing daggers, wearing them at our belts. Hopefully, it would be enough.

…

Vauxhall Underground Station. That was where we were going, and I liked our plan less and less. Some years ago, and accident had happened. A gas explosion had hit a train coming into the station and killed everyone on board. DEPRAC and several agencies had worked double time, but in the end, it was determined that it was better to spend a staggering amount of money to divert the line and close the station. _That’s_ how haunted that place was.

Flo had given us directions but had warned us that once we were in, we didn’t know each other. We would be completely on our own.

“Are you sure about this?” I hissed at Lockwood as we approached the entrance. “It’s not too late to turn around.”

He took my hand and gave it a slight squeeze. “Don’t worry, Luce. We’ll be fine.” I squeezed back and took several deep breaths to calm myself down. He didn’t let go of my hand for which I was grateful but traced small circles on it with his thumb. It was a small gesture, and he was probably doing it without thinking, but it helped me. If I had him by my side, things couldn’t go _too_ wrong.

At the entrance, two burly men stood guard with a small twig of a girl between them. In a way, it was strange to watch. The little girl was obviously calling the shots, ordering the men who were both easily twice her size and adults.

Lockwood insisted on handling the transaction and I held my breath the entire time. I don’t know why I let him do it. Maybe because he’s always the one doing the talking when we’re dealing with clients. At those times, it made sense because he was so charismatic but put him in any kind of disguise whether it was some elaborate get-up or just a hat, he had a tendency to do accents or over act whatever part he thought he was playing in his mind. It had gotten us into trouble numerous times.

We were lucky enough to get through, but I’m certain that had it not been for that girl, we would be floating in the Thames. Lockwood was rude and overacting as predicted and I held my breath through the entire conversation, trying to refrain from stomping on his foot or possibly strangling him.

It was a bad start and did nothing for my courage, but I repeated _we’re going to be fine_ over and over again as a mantra inside my head. It didn’t help that I was already tired, and my ankle was throbbing. We’d had to walk all the way because no taxi would take us the way we were dressed. My limp was pronounced, and I had a hard time keeping up with Lockwood’s long stride.

Regardless, we were in.

It was freezing down at the underground station – probably from the ghosts there. Everyone was congregated on the platform but down, just on the other side of a set of train tracks, a wall of bags with iron filings and salt had been erected to shield us from the Visitors, but I could sense them just on the other side.

It was strange walking among so many relic-men. They usually kept themselves at the fringes of society and seeing so many gathered in one place was scary. The smell alone was enough to make me gag. I was seriously questioning my life choices. Speaking of; a familiar voice suddenly reverberated through my mind, loud and desperate enough to make me wince.

_“LUCY! HELP ME!!”_

I had to dig my nails into the palms of my hands to keep from clutching my head. The relic-men were an odd bunch with strange habits, but it was better not call attention to myself.

“The skull is here.” I whispered to Lockwood. I grabbed his hand and pulled him with me. At the far end of the station, a line of relic-men had formed, leading towards a long table behind which the corpulent figure of Adelaide Winkman sat as if on a throne. Her son, Leopold was sat next to her and with each item brought forth to them they had a short, whispered conversation, probably about the power and value of each Source.

I didn’t like it. We would have to get awfully close to them because behind them, was a door and I was certain that the skull would be behind it. Lockwood had noticed the same thing. He squeezed my hand.

“As I see it, we have two options. We can either try to get closer and eavesdrop, to try and find out where they’re taking the Sources and then go get the skull from there. We would have to get _very_ close which would make it easier for the Winkmans to recognise us,” he whispered. “Our other option could be for me to create a diversion. Then you can slip through that door to where they’re probably storing the Sources they buy, grab the skull and _it_ can tell us what it knows. That way we might have more intel to take down whoever is buying up Sources in such a large quantity.”

I swallowed hard. Neither of those options sounded good to me. “What do you think?” I asked.

“I think option two is best. As much as I don’t like that foul thing, it could give us more information for the next step in taking down this buyer.”

I sighed. To be honest, I didn’t care too much about the next step. I would like nothing more than to just get the skull and leave the rest to DEPRAC, but I knew it mattered to Lockwood and I was in his debt for helping me get the skull back and letting me stay at Portland Row.

“Fine,” I relented. “create your diversion.”

Lockwood grinned at me. “I thought you’d never ask.”

He pulled something out of his satchel, and I had to ask myself if he was completely insane. I recognised the silver-glass from our trophy room. It contained one of the more powerful spirits and was glowing with a bright blue otherworldly light.

My eyes widened and I was about to tell him not to do it but before I had the chance, he threw it as hard as he could across the room where it landed a few feet in front of the Winkmans’ table.

The effect was instant. Many of the relic-men were young and able to see the spectre. But even if it couldn’t be seen, it could certainly be felt. There was a mad scramble to get away. Lockwood pulled another glass jar out and threw it in the other direction, causing confusion as the relic-men didn’t know where to run.

I made a mad dash for the door and slipped through. I slammed the door behind me, but the screaming was easily heard through the wood. Then I looked up and realised that I wasn’t alone. A man was standing in front of a chair. Behind him were shelves with several boxes which I assumed contained Sources. I had seen the man before, but I had a hard time placing him. He looked strangely ordinary compared to the characters that had congregated out on the platform.

“What are you doing here?” He yelled at me.

“Er – Adelaide needs you.” I pointed with my thumb behind my shoulder and with all the screaming I thought it wasn’t an unlikely scenario.

Sure enough, the man pushed past me and out the door into the mayhem.

_“Lucy? Is that you"_

“Yes, you foul old thing,” I hissed. “Now, where are you?”

 _“I_ knew _you’d come for me! You just can’t stay away.”_

“I don’t have time for this, Skull! Where are you?”

_“fine, fine, keep your hair on. Top shelf second box from the left"_

I had to jump to reach it and was disappointed with what I found.

“That box is empty,”

_“Right, I think they moved me. Bottom shelf to the right maybe?”_

I rifled through the box of assorted Sources and came across the jar of teeth from the Ealing Cannibal case. Gross.

But no skull

_“Middle shelf then"_

I stopped listening to the skull and went through boxes at random. I came across several Sources that I had on cases over the last month. Including the mummified head from the Emma Marchment case.

I finally found the stupid skull in the box in the bottom left corner and I tried not to cry out in relief. I didn’t want it to think I had missed it or anything.

Unfortunately, just as I was shoving it into the satchel, the man returned and caught me red-handed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he roared.

I didn’t try to explain myself as I thought it was rather obvious what I was doing. He came at me and just before he reached me, I had dived underneath his arm. He reached for me, but the only thing he managed to grip was the wig that was ripped straight off my head. I passed the chair in the narrow space and pulled it out behind me to block the way for him, giving myself a few more seconds to make it through the door.

Utter bedlam was what I was met with. Lockwood’s diversion had worked a little too well. Another ghost had been released. Whether it was Lockwood’s doing or a Source that had been released by accident, was unclear. Either way, it was a powerful thing, and the relic-men were running around in a frenzied panic.

I tried to spot Lockwood, which was surprisingly easy. For some reason he was wearing one of the spirit-capes in bright colours which stood in great contrast to the black, brown and greys of the relic-men. He was standing dangerously close to one of the ghosts, but for some reason in didn’t touch him.

Of course – the silver!

I ran towards him. He was carrying both capes and I needed it if we were both going to survive.

Unfortunately, I had been spotted. Adelaide Winkman stood staring at me with obvious recognition. She pointed at me and yelled something I couldn’t make out over the panicked cacophony of the relic-men, but the message was clearly received by the people closest to her, including her son, Leopold.

Five men came at me. All big and brutal looking. The crowd parted for them like the Red Sea, clearing a path for them directly to me.

I ran, ducked and swerved, trying to get away, but I was stumbling and moving too slowly. Each time the foot with the injured ankle connected with the tiled floor, a flare of pain shot through my entire leg.

Lockwood stood close to the exit, near the edge of the platform. I had almost reached him when the heavy-set figure of Leopold Winkman rammed into me from the side.

My injured ankle gave way and for a moment I was weightless. I twisted in the air and landed on my back. My head collided with the unrelenting iron of the train track and I was out.

My last thought before everything went black was that I hoped that Lockwood would survive.

The last thing I saw was a wave of new people rushing into the station.

The last thing I heard was a male voice, screaming my name.


	8. General feelings of desperation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the people who like the way this is going; You're welcome  
> To the people who don't; I'm so sorry.

_Quill:_

It was only by coincidence I was even home when the call came. We had finished our assignment surprisingly early, but it wasn’t without cost. I was filthy. The Source was buried at Vauxhall City Farm and I had spent an hour digging for it while Kate and Bobby were fending off an angry Victorian lady complete with petticoat and enormous hat. She hadn’t been happy about the way her final resting place had been turned into a goat pen. Neither was I, seeing as a goat tried to eat my hair. We really did draw the shortest straw amongst the assignments these days.

On my way home, I saw a familiar face.

Florence Bonnard was keeping to the shadows as she generally did, but she was easy to recognise in her straw hat and blue jacket. We exchanged a quick hello, but I didn’t ask where she was going. I assumed the Thames nearby. Either way, she wasn’t likely to tell me. She made fun of my sorry state and said something about fitting right in. With the dirt on my face and the stiffness of my hair from goat saliva, I had even less desire to know the place she was going, where that would be the dress code.

Despite my dirtiness, I had no issue finding a night cab willing to take me. Maybe because I’d had the sense to at least take off my jacket before I started digging. Never being rejected was the sort of respect the Fittes uniform provided, that I would sorely miss if I ever left the agency, but the level of disrespect I received from the management was hardly worth it. My hair was an attest to that.

Once I came home, I went directly to the bathroom, showered for almost an hour and I still didn’t feel clean.

It was half past midnight when the phone rang. I had only just lowered myself into an armchair, intent on reading something my mother had dropped off, giving me strict instructions to read it before the end of the week. I had one day left and 627 pages to go.

I was tempted to just let it ring. With my luck it would be the agency, ready with another assignment because we had finished early. Probably in a sewer again.

Turned out it was worse. A lot worse.

Of all people, it was Florence Bonnard who I had seen earlier. I'd had some doubts if she even knew how to use a telephone, but I had given her my number anyway in case she was ever in trouble.

Turned out that it wasn’t her who was in trouble, but her precious _Locky_ and the girl whose skirt was still hanging on the clothesline in my garden, Lucy Carlyle.

I made five phone calls. One to Kate, one to Bobby, one to Cubbins and one to Inspector Montagu Barnes at DEPRAC. The last one was for a night cab. I took full advantage of my position as Fittes division leader to jump the line. For all I knew the night cab driver had been forced to kick out his passengers so I could get where I needed to go. Fast.

Not more than twenty minutes later, I met with Inspector Barnes, half a dozen DEPRAC agents, Kate and Bobby. I had told Florence to go and hide. It was no good for her to go and get swept up with the rest of the relic-men. Lucy and Tony were easier to get out of trouble – it would take a hell of a lot of fibbing, and I was efficiently flushing my career down the toilet.

But who cared at this point? I was going to quit anyway. At least, this way I got to go down in a spectacular fashion, rather than finishing my last case being wooed by a goat .

“Now, Mr. Kipps. Tell us more about what to expect.” Barnes demanded.

I cleared my throat, got ready to lie through my teeth, and put on my best leadership-tone, speaking loudly in order to be heard by the entire group. This was my element, I hadn’t risen through the ranks because of my pretty face.

“Right. This is a joint venture, not unlike the Aickmere case -" I started but was interrupted by Barnes

“The one where you destroyed an entire department store?”

I decided to ignore that. “We received some intel from a reliable source that an organised black-market ring, dealing in Sources had been formed with Adelaide Winkman and her son at the head. We decided that before we alerted DEPRAC, we wanted to confirm the existence of said ring. For this reason, we have two operatives undercover down there doing reconnaissance; Anthony Lockwood and Lucy Carlyle.”

God, I hoped they bought it.

“Our source has informed me half an hour ago that the situation has devolved and at least one Source has been released down there. The plan is that our team will contain the Source while DEPRAC takes down and detain as many of the relic-men as possible. Things have already gone pear-shaped and we don’t have a clear overview of the situation, so be careful!”

The DEPRAC agents got ready. In the meantime, my team turned to me. Kate’s face was close to unreadable as ever. Bobby was close to losing it.

“So, we're here to save your girlfriend.” Was Kate's dry comment.

“She’s _not_ \- we're here to take down an illegal trading ring and save _Tony and..._ and Lucy.”

Bobby frowned at me. “Why didn’t you tell us about the trading ring before?” he asked me, clearly hurt by being kept out of the supposed loop.

“Because I didn’t actually know about it until half an hour ago.” I hissed.

His eyes widened “So this isn’t authorised.” Bobby pointed out in horror.

I nodded “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure your backs are clear.”

Kate put a hand on my shoulder “But Quill,” her forehead was creased with worry. “You'll be-"

“I know,” I cut her off, impatient to get moving.

Cubbins and Munroe chose that moment to show up, out of breath. I was impressed at how fast Cubbins had been. He wasn’t exactly the fastest, but credit where credit was due, he was nothing if not loyal. Both were bringing two rapiers, I assumed for Tony and Lucy.

“Ready?” I assumed they knew what we were walking into.

They nodded grimly and with hands on our rapiers, accompanied by DEPRAC agents, we stormed down the stairs.

As it turned out, _no one_ could have known what we were walking into.

I didn’t have words for what I saw. The pandemonium was so immense that any type of description fell short. Barnes immediately sent one of the agents back upstairs to call for reinforcements.

About a hundred people in various degrees of dirtiness were scrambling around in confused panic.

Kate informed me that no less than three spirits were loose, all of them type two's it seemed, but I didn’t hear her because as soon as I had reached the bottom, I saw something I never wanted to see again.

Lucy was running unsteadily along the edge of the platform, her ankle probably giving her trouble still. She had no business being here. Then, out of the blue, a large easily recognisable figure slammed into her from the side. Time seemed to slow down as I watched Lucy falling. Under normal circumstances, she might have been able to withstand the hit, but her injured ankle couldn’t take her full weight and counter the force she was pushed with. Her leg seemed to disappear beneath her, and she was sent flying. She twisted slightly in the air and fell. The back of her head bounced off one of the rails and she lay completely still.

I might have shouted her name, but that didn’t make sense to me because I was sure I wasn’t even able to breathe.

I took off in a sprint and jumped down next to her. She was unconscious. Alive, but unconscious.

I was close to calling for a medic before I remembered that _I was_ the medic and my training kicked in. I couldn’t allow myself to panic.

Under normal circumstances, I would stabilise her neck and wait for transportation to the hospital, but I didn’t have that luxury. A chaotic battle between DEPRAC agents, relic-men, Visitors and agents was going on around us and it was only a matter of time before we were either ghost-touched or otherwise attacked.

I didn’t have a choice. I picked her up, eerily reminiscent of the other night, except this time it was so much worse.

I slid her up onto the platform behind where Kat was fending off something invisible, creating a small safe space for us. I jumped up myself, picked her up and made my way towards the exit. I felt a spirit coming closer even though I couldn’t see it. It was a terrifying feeling, amplified by the fact that I wasn’t just responsible for my own life, but Lucy’s too.

Help, in the form of Tony who came from the side, wearing the strangest outfit I had ever seen. He seemed to be dressed as a bird and I couldn’t help the idle thought that he really was taking his idiotic disguises a bit too far.

He covered Lucy with a similar type of material and while I didn’t get the point, I let him. At least she would be warm when we got outside.

I didn’t have time to yell at him because before I knew it, he had gotten a rapier probably from Cubbins or Munro and was working with Kat to take down the spirit that had been going for us.

I wanted to take the steps two at a time, but I had to move as fluently as possible. I couldn’t jostle her too much. I had no idea how severe her injury was, and if any complications arose because of me, I would never forgive myself.

When I finally reached the top, two extra teams of DEPRAC agents were already on their way down. I almost cried in relief when I saw that someone had been smart enough to call for an ambulance as a precaution. That extra few minutes of waiting time could potentially be devastating.

“Trauma to the back of the head!” I shouted to the paramedics who stood near the ambulance. They looked at Lucy’s clothes with a sneer and lazily started gathering the things for stabilising the head and neck.

I didn’t have patience for their stupid discrimination.

“Lucy Carlyle has been undercover on this reconnaissance mission and is one of the _best agents_ this city has ever seen! I suggest you get a bloody move on!” I snapped.

That speeded things up. “Why did you move her?” one of the paramedics asked, now full of concern. His question was answered though, when DEPRAC agents started pulling cuffed relic-men up the stairs and sat them down on the pavement in large numbers who all looked like they had been in fistfights.

One of the agents came jogging towards us as the paramedics worked on Lucy. Apparently, there was a frighteningly large amount of ghost-touches, broken limbs and other serious injuries. That’s what panic does. Like DEPRAC, the paramedics hurriedly radioed for reinforcements.

Soon after, they drove away with Lucy. I desperately wanted to go with her, to make sure she was going to be okay, but I was needed here. I might have issues with fighting ghosts without my Talents, but nothing could stop me from taking down Leopold Winkman. The only question was who got there first – Me or Tony.

…

_Lucy:_

I woke up to the sound of raised voices. I felt sluggish, like my brain wasn’t quite in contact with my body. I was lying on my side, and several things felt wrong. The first thing that hit me was the smell. That antiseptic mixed with heavy amounts of lavender coming from stiff sheets. The next was the very air of the room which was somehow charged but stale. Neither helped the pounding headache I had.

The scratchiness of the gown I was wearing, confirmed that I was in the hospital. A warm hand was holding mine. Raised voices were coming from the hall.

It took me a while to reach a level of consciousness where I was able to discern who was speaking. I heard George and Lockwood being part of the argument, but the thing that cut through the loudest was the furious yelling of Quill Kipps

“- were you thinking?! Of all the irresponsible hare-brained things you have ever done, this _really_ outshines the rest!”

“That’s none of your-“ I heard Lockwood protest.

“Considering that I just saved your arse at the cost of my own, I'd say it _is_ my business.”

Someone kicked a chair. I assumed it was Lockwood. “How did you even know where we were? Did Lucy tell you?” he demanded.

I heard Quill huffing a humourless laugh. “You’re not the only one Florence talks to, you know. _She_ called me when things started going sideways.”

“We were doing fine until you showed up! We could’ve managed!”

“Oh really? Because Lucy was _falling onto the train tracks_ when I showed up! She could have _died_!” Quill cut him off in a roar. “She’s still recovering from a serious injury she gained only a few days ago and already, you’re pulling her with you into one of your idiotic stunts! Lucy might be one of the most competent agent I have ever seen, but no matter their Talent or skills, pushing an injured agent into the field too soon is signing their execution order!” He shouted.

“She was the only one who could–“ Lockwood started

“ _I don’t care_!” Quill thundered “I don’t care whatever the hell you think you were doing or what you were trying to achieve! What I care about is _Lucy_ and the way that you’re taking advantage of the fact that she doesn’t know how to say no to you!”

This was met with absolute silence. Holly had said something similar once and I started wondering if maybe it had some truth to it.

“It was her idea to come with.” George provided eventually. He said so in a normal voice, so I almost didn’t hear it. It was a big contrast to the yelling coming from the others.

“I don’t care if it was the bloody Queen’s idea.” I could practically hear the sneer in Quills voice. “I sent Lucy to Portland Row because I mistakenly thought you people _would keep her safe._ Your stupid ambition is not worth her life. One would think you had an interest in not losing any more people you care about, _Lockwood_ ” He spat.

Even though I knew that Lockwood preferred being called by his last name, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that coming from Quill, the name ‘Lockwood' was designed to hurt a lot more than when he called him ‘Tony'.

“Now, I need to go. I need to DEPRAC to clean up the mess _you_ made.” He finished. I heard the sound of his boots stomping down the hall.

I finally managed to open my eyes to see Holly sitting near my bedside, her face streaked with tears. Her make-up was completely ruined, and her hairstyle was all crooked. I hadn’t seen her so dishevelled since Aickmere.

She sniffled and wiped her eyes and nose with a delicate looking handkerchief. She hadn’t seen that I was awake.

“Hey Holly,” I whispered.

She jumped a little in the chair. “Oh, Lucy!” she whispered back wetly. Her chin wobbled and she started crying in earnest. “I was so scared!” she sobbed.

The door opened slowly, and George rushed inside, probably because of Holly’s sounds of distress.

Trailing behind him came Lockwood but he hung back. Whatever fight he had been full of when he was arguing with Quill had clearly left him now. He was looking at his feet and his shoulders were hunched. He was back in his neat suit. They probably wouldn’t have let him into the hospital dressed as a relic-man. It wouldn’t have been sanitary. Where his suit was looking pristine, the rest of him wasn’t. His hair that was usually styled just so was in disarray, sticking out in odd angles as if he’d been running his hands through it repeatedly.

“We'll go get some tea,” George mumbled and patted my arm. “It’s good to see you awake Luce,” He helped Holly, who was still crying softly, out of the chair.

“Wait,” I whispered. “Did you get the skull? It was in my bag,”

George shook his head. “We couldn’t find your bag anywhere.”

They left and George patted Lockwood’s arm when they passed him, but he didn’t react. The door closed with a soft click behind them.

When Lockwood finally looked at me, I saw that he had washed his face of the make-up, but his eyes were red rimmed. He reached my bedside in three long strides. I tried to give him a reassuring smile. He put his hands on either side of my face and before I knew it, he kissed me.

It was a desperate thing. His hands were trembling, and it tasted like salty tears.

He finally kissed me. I had my doubts if he liked me like that or not, but here he was, kissing me. The curious thing was that I didn’t know how I felt about it. Maybe I had thought about it and imagined how it would be too much over the last couple of days and my expectations had become too high. Maybe it was because my head hurt the way he held it or maybe it was because of the salty taste, but it wasn’t the toe-curling experience a had thought it would be. The bird-sized butterflies I had imagined would flutter around in my stomach, didn’t show.

He drew back but rested his forehead against mine “I’m so sorry, Luce.” He whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Lockwood. It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.” I tried.

He leaned back a little so I could look properly in his eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.” Tears spilled over and ran down his cheeks. “Kipps is right. I shouldn’t have brought you along.”

I tried to shake my head, but it sent spikes of pain through my skull. “It was my own choice.”

“It was my idea in the first place, and it was a horrible one. We should have waited, or we could have found some other way, but I pushed it because I was just so excited to have you back, Lucy. I missed you so much. I missed the rush of facing danger with you. Us against the world.” He gave me a small lopsided smile and squeezed my hand.

What could I say to that? I _had_ missed the adrenaline I had missed the rush of fighting alongside him. But more than that, I had missed the way he smiled. I had missed his hand in mine, the looks he sent me across a room and the way he sounded when he was excited about something. I missed the way he made tea, his silly disguises and his faith in me.

The one thing I _hadn’t_ missed was the reckless danger we seemed to face at every turn.

The danger that he hunted on purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So - A Locklyle kiss. Was it everything you hoped and dreamed of?
> 
> Regardless, thanks for reading this far. Please consider leaving a review or kudo or something. I'd appreciate it a lot.


	9. Not Nice

Having woken up, I had to go through a ridiculous number of tests to check my cognitive functions and the like and they concluded that I had a bad concussion. I was told that I was very lucky though because I might as well have broken my spine or fractured my skull. I didn’t feel lucky though because it hurt like the devil. Thankfully, they gave me some medicine for that.

The course of action would be rest and they would keep me for observation.

Early next morning, which might as well have been the middle of the night, I was woken up by a whisper.

“ _Lucy_?"

I thought for a moment that the skull was back. “I’m _not_ killing Holly with a coat-hanger.” I groaned into the pillow.

There was a choked sort of sound and I opened an eye and was met with sight of Quill no more than a few inches away from me, holding a bandaged hand to his mouth, struggling not to laugh.

“I knew you and Munro had some issues, but a coat-hanger, Lucy?” he sniggered.

“Well, it wasn’t my idea.” I grumbled, still not fully awake.

“Whose idea was it then? I thought everyone found her delightful.”

“Of course _you_ would think that.” I rolled my eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He lifted an eyebrow at me, and I was too tired to analyse it.

I snorted. “Men generally find Holly _delightful_.”

He only grinned cheekily at me.

“You’re also both _really_ high-maintenance. You ought to get along splendidly.”

I felt very satisfied when he coughed and turned completely pink.

“I mean it, you should go on a spa-date or something.” I continued. “Shopping, maybe. It would actually be grand if you went shopping with Holly, because maybe then I wouldn’t have to do it.” I slurred.

“Anyway,” he coughed. “We need to talk, and we don’t have too much time.”

He filled me in on what he had told DEPRAC and what he had told Lockwood.

“Tony’s being be interrogated now, but I think he’ll be okay. We er… had words, but I think he’ll stick to the story. While his actions say differently sometimes, Tony _isn’t_ _actually_ an idiot.” He smiled ruefully.

I giggled, “I know.”

“Barnes will probably come to talk to you too.” He bit his lip and looked over his shoulder at the door, as if he expected it to fly open any minute. “I should probably go before one of the nurses catch me in here.” He didn’t move to stand though. “How do you feel?” he asked me softly.

“I don’t know. I have a headache but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I also feel lightheaded but that’s probably because they might have given me something. Everything looks sort of,” I waved my hands in the air, trying to find the right word, “... soft.”

“Are you sure you don’t just need glasses?” he grinned and came closer, leaning his elbows on the mattress “Is that better?”

I giggled because he leaned into a red-golden ray of morning sunlight that made his hair shine incredibly bright.

“It looks like your head is on fire.” I put a hand on the side of his face and let the other one brush through his red hair.

He smiled softly. “I think you need to sleep.”

“I _am_ tired. But I’m glad you came. I missed you.” I yawned.

He smiled widely and I found myself smiling back.

“I missed you too.” He whispered and kissed my forehead.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, the sun was high in the sky and a harassed looking nurse was taking my blood pressure. The cuff tightened uncomfortably around my arm and I supposed that was probably what had woken me up. My headache was far worse, but my head was clearer.

Inspector Barnes came to see me, not long after.

“Good. You’re alive.” He grumbled, which was probably the closest thing to affection anyone had ever received from him.

“So – We have four casualties and eighteen people in hospital, including two DEPRAC agents. You mind telling me why you shouldn’t be in handcuffs right now?” he started off. He was in a good mood.

“How many arrests did you make?”

He grunted “Forty-five.”

“Then I believe that at least partially answers your question.” I shrugged. “Will the injured people be okay?”

He sighed. “Too soon to tell. Three are in a coma, including Leopold Winkman.”

“And Adelaide?” I asked. Hoping that she at least would go to prison like her husband.

Barnes shook his head. “Didn’t find her. Probably escaped through one of the emergency exits.”

“There was someone else there, behind the operation. A man.”

I tried to give him a description, but the man had been so painfully ordinary that it was absolutely useless.

“You might as well be describing half the men in London.” Barnes grunted.

I frowned at him. “Besides Leopold, he was probably the only clean man present. He was even wearing a suit. Surely that narrows it down.”

The Inspector shook his head. “We found no one like that.”

“He probably went with Adelaide then.” I sighed.

“Now. Give a rundown of what happened there.” He ordered.

I gave him my explanation. It was surprisingly easy to weave Quill’s story with the truth to make it sound more legitimate. That we had been contacted by an anonymous source and had agreed to team up with Quill since we had a great collaboration in the past and we needed extra manpower. How our plan _definitely_ wasn’t to take down the trading ring on our own and how we _certainly_ hadn’t been doing anything other than reconnaissance. We also agreed that putting a little blame on DEPRAC wouldn’t hurt our case.

“We knew DEPRAC wouldn’t take us seriously without evidence, inspector Barnes. That’s the general theme in our collaboration, isn’t it? Besides, we had no idea that it would be on this large a scale.” I shook my head. We really hadn’t.

“And how about the Sources that were released?” he questioned.

“I’m afraid I’m not entirely certain how that happened but considering how many Sources they had in such a small space with that many people gathered, I’m not surprised. I’m more surprised it wasn’t worse. But I didn’t see much because at that point, I had snuck into their storage. There were sixteen boxes. Thirteen of them were full to the brim with Sources. Did you recover them?”

Barnes shook his head disappointedly “We only got ten. Three of them were empty.”

I uttered a quite unladylike expletive that made Barnes' eyebrows rise high on his forehead.

“Adelaide and that man probably took the Sources with them.”

He only nodded. “Be more careful from now on. You've made a lot of enemies. And uh, get better.” He grunted uncomfortably.

Yup. I was expecting the adoption papers would arrive with the post within a fortnight.

…

I spent an entire week in the hospital. George and Holly came by every day. Holly fussed like a mother hen. I was grateful that she brought a few of my things like toiletries and a hairbrush. She also gave me a small bag that the boys weren’t allowed to open. (I was grateful for being able to wear my own knickers – thank you, Holly.)

Lockwood too came every day. He usually came before George and Holly and left long before they were gone even though I can’t have been the greatest company since I slept most of the time away. He was far more subdued than I had ever seen him before even if he cheered a bit as the week went on.

He didn’t kiss my mouth again. I started being unsure if that night had been a hallucination brought on by my head injury which meant that there was still hope for that first kiss, I had been looking forward to. Sometimes his eyes lingered on my lips though and I wondered if the experience _had_ been real and why he would be holding back now if it was. Did he regret it? Had it just been a spur of the moment thing and nothing more? He held my hand a lot though and every time before he left, he would kiss my knuckles which I thought was sweet.

Quill didn’t come every day. Instead he came every night, probably because he knew Lockwood would never stay in the hospital after dark for fear of going blind from all the death glows.

Quill would also hold my hand but would study it finger by finger and the lines of my palm as if he were trying to tell my fortune. He smiled at me in amusement when he noticed the state of my fingernails which were uneven, flossed and dirty with iron and magnesium. I swear at one point he would have given me a manicure had he not been kicked out by a nurse.

He was the one who had given me the most comprehensive summary of the events following my injury. The others skirted around the subject.

Apparently, Lockwood had released two spirits as his intended diversion, and it had worked a bit too well. If there had been more room or less people it might not have been so disastrous, but in such a small enclosed space, it had deadly consequences. Lockwood had to be devastated.

A third had been released by accident when one of the relic-men accidentally dropped a Source out of the bag of lavender he had been keeping it in. Death by ghost-touch had been almost instantaneous.

Four relic-men had died from ghost-touch. A dozen more required adrenalin shots. Other than that, there were broken legs, arms, lacerations, head wounds and a few stabbings.

Quill himself didn’t seem to have gotten away unscathed either. His left hand was bandaged, but he refused to talk about it.

Lockwood along with Holly, George, Kate Godwin and Bobby Vernon had dispatched the ghosts. It was relatively easy since Lockwood knew what two of the Sources were and the approximate direction in which he had thrown them. I still had a hard time understanding how he could be so irresponsible. Yes, he was often reckless and yes, often we survived due to luck more than anything else, but usually it was only his own life he put on the line. Sometimes he pulled us along too, but usually the only life he was endangering was his own. The fact that people had died had to be eating at him and the only reason he wasn’t in custody was because no one believed the relic-men when they blamed him.

Quill had been fired for insubordination. When I told him that he and George ought to start a club, he had snorted in disgust and pointed out that it would never work. Firstly, because every meeting would inevitably come to blows and secondly because he was the one who had gotten George fired from Fittes in the first place.

Kate Godwin and Bobby Vernon had gone free. Quill had made clear to his superiors that they had no prior knowledge of this supposed reconnaissance mission. In that way, he had given them an out while also providing Lockwood and I with a cover. He had essentially sacrificed himself for us.

Of course, I knew that he had considered quitting already, but that wasn’t common knowledge and there was just something different about being fired. It might even have consequences for his future plans. He assured me that he would be fine though.

It was strange seeing him in plain clothes. Other than half-naked and those five minutes of him wearing a t-shirt, I had never seen him in anything other than his Fittes uniform. Somehow, he still managed to retain an air of arrogance and while his bitterness had gone up a bit, he also seemed relieved in a way.

By far, the most bizarre visit I had though, was from Kate Godwin who came by on the second day. I still slept most of the time and when I woke up at noon, it was to the view of Kate, looking perfect and composed as usual, sitting in the chair next to my bed, leaned back and reading the newspaper that Quill had brought the night before. In it, was an article about the raid the other night and he had written small comments in the margins like _“can you believe the cheek?”_ and _“as if I would ever say that" or “Do these reporters even know anything about ghosts?”_. At the bottom there was a small blank space where he had written something that had been scratched out again.

I wondered how long she had been sitting there and if I had been drooling. I probably had.

She casually folded the paper and put it on the table, not changing her position at all. Her face was as unreadable as ever and I had the idle thought that maybe she and George had received the same training at Fittes.

“So – Welcome back to the land of the living, Carlyle.” She studied her nails before looking directly at me, seemingly staring directly into my soul. I was almost surprised that she couldn’t dispel ghosts just by looking at them.

“Hi Godwin.”

She smirked at me. “Call me Kate.”

“Kate... You might as well call me Lucy then. What brings you here?” I lifted a challenging eyebrow, trying to play it just as cool as she was, but I was sure I failed spectacularly, considering my massive bed head and the fact that I probably had an imprint from the pillow on my face.

“I was nearby and figured I might drop by on everyone’s favourite agent.”

I snorted “Hardly.”

She laughed in a way that I wasn’t sure was sincere or not.

“No, I heard you aren’t very popular at Rotwell’s.”

 _Rotwell_. That rang a bell. I suddenly remembered something. Or rather someone.

“Carlyle? – Lucy?” Kate prompted. Apparently, I had zoned out a bit too long. She snapped her fingers in front of my face and I frowned.

“What do you want?”

“To check that you haven’t got brain damage and so far, I’m not convinced.” She looked at me seriously. “I heard you were back with Lockwood.”

I sighed. “I don’t know, honestly.” I looked at the ceiling. “I haven’t been rehired, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But you moved back in with him.” She concluded. The way she said it made me strangely uncomfortable.

I shifted a bit. “I’m just staying with him at the moment. Well, him _and George.”_ I clarified.

“Right.” She smiled, displaying a row of perfect teeth, white and shiny enough to rival Lockwood’s. Except this smile was cold like that of a crocodile.

“Holly too from time to time.” I felt like elaborating.

She nodded. “How come you moved back in?”

I hesitated. This felt more and more like an interrogation. “I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”

She pursed her lips “I suppose it isn’t.” She went back to studying her nails.

An awkward silence stretched before I gave in with a huff. “Fine. Some people broke into my flat. We think it had something to do with that black-market ring.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “So, the danger is over then?”

“Why Godwin, I didn’t think you cared.” I raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Maybe I care about someone else.” she replied enigmatically

I sighed. “Fine. I doubt it’s over. They almost killed me once already and DEPRAC only got maybe half of the relic-men that night. And Adelaide will want to get revenge for both her husband and now her son as well. She’ll be out for blood. Mine in particular.”

I tried to sound nonchalant, but the truth was that I was terrified. Kate Godwin’s appearance just confirmed that virtually anyone could walk into my room and I would be defenceless.

Apparently, she had the same thoughts because she frowned at bit. “Are you even safe here?”

I sighed heavily “I don’t know. Why do you even care?”

“Let’s just say I have a vested interest.” Well that sounded as vague as possible and slightly ominous.

The worst part was probably that she left without another word before I could ask what she meant.

…

The fourth day, George came by, curiously alone.

“You look like shit.” Was his greeting. I smiled because coming from him, that was bordering on a compliment. His brutal sincerity and sometimes purposeful antagonism was something that had grated on me at the beginning, but now I welcomed it. I could always trust George to tell things as they were.

“Do you remember that time when I threw a saucer at you and it split your eyebrow?” I reminisced with a grin.

George snorted “I have the scar to remind me.”

“Sure, you do, but you don’t spend too much time in front of the mirror, so what use is it?” I shrugged.

“True.”

“Where’s Lockwood? He’s usually here by this time.” I asked

George grinned. “I taped some black cardboard on his window before we left on a case last night.” He scratched his neck. “He’s been running himself ragged. He’s been out on cases at night and coming here, only with a quick shower in between. We came home at 3 last night and I told him that I’d wake him up at 6 this morning.”

I looked at the clock. It was almost noon.

I smiled at him. “Good job, George. How is he?”

George took off his glasses and ran a hand over his face. “It’s bad, Luce.” He sighed heavily. “It’s really bad. I haven’t seen him like this since Robin died.”

“Your previous assistant?”

George nodded. “He was hard on himself back then. This time it’s worse. He’s not eating and he’s not sleeping. Holly’s going bonkers about it.”

I bit my lip. “I’m not saying he should punish himself or beat himself up. I want all the best for him. But maybe this could put some sense into him. It was a reckless move.”

George sighed heavily and looked at me for the longest time without saying anything. I could tell that he was formulating something in that big brain of his though. He was sitting in the chair and was tapping the table with his index finger and I didn’t dare interrupt is thought process.

“I see that Kipps has been here.” He noted out of the blue, turning the newspaper on the bedside table towards himself, with Quill’s neat swirling handwriting. He had brought a fresh one the previous night which had an article about DEPRAC’s investigation. They had finally linked the trading ring to the furnaces.

I only nodded.

“It was really a good thing he did for you. And Lockwood.”

“It was.” I confirmed.

He shrugged, “but you know, that him doing a good thing doesn’t make him a good person, right?”

I sighed. “He’s never done anything bad to me.” I pointed out. “And since I’ve met him, he hasn’t done anything bad to any of you either, other than your petty rivalries. He’s even been helpful.”

George took off his glasses and rubbed them with my bedsheet. I raised an eyebrow at him, but it was useless because he wouldn’t be able to see it anyway. He put them back on and rummaged a bit in the rucksack he had brought. I almost cried when he pulled out a familiar looking tin of biscuits.

“Thank you, George” I breathed when he offered me one. “What they have here – I swear it’s made with sawdust.”

George shrugged “Or it could be leftovers from the crematorium.”

He grinned when I gagged.

“What I mean to say is that you should be careful around Kipps.” He continued.

I sighed heavily. “And why is that?”

George shifted uncomfortably. That caught my attention. George generally doesn’t shift.

“Because he isn’t nice.”

“Not… not nice? That’s your argument? George Cubbins telling me to be careful with someone because they’re not… nice? And what am I supposed to do with _you_ then, you arse? Beat you with a stick?”

George shook his head. “Just think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys, for staying with this story.  
> Some of you have left reviews that I'm truly grateful for.   
> I hope you'll continue doing so because they really give me life.  
> I know this is not everyone's cup of tea, and that's completely fine, so thank you for keeping up.  
> I'm having a lot of fun with it and I hope some of you do too.
> 
> So please take a second to leave a kudo or a minute to leave a review


	10. Flowers

I almost couldn’t believe it when I was finally discharged. I had been ready to leave five days before.

Holly and Lockwood came to pick me up and I felt almost giddy. Tired, but giddy.

Lockwood was still doing somewhat poorly, but I liked to think that he seemed a bit more cheerful when I came home.

Home. Or as close as I got to a home these days. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere near Tooting.

I almost fell twice because I in such a hurry to get out of that place. The only thing I was going to miss would be Quill’s evening visits. Something told me that he probably wouldn’t be coming to Portland Row to sit near my bedside.

Lockwood helped me out of the taxi. It was mid-afternoon and after being locked up for so long, I couldn’t help but stand still on the sidewalk in front of the house and bask a little in the sun. I had never been one for flowers but seeing the daffodils in the neighbour’s garden made me happy for some reason.

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths of the fresh air and felt my mouth spreading in a wide smile as I let that feeling of freedom fill me up.

When I opened my eyes again, it was to Lockwood who was standing, looking at me with amusement. I hoped my joy could somehow rub off on him. I wanted him to be happy.

”Welcome home Lucy.” he told me quietly.

His smile wasn’t the large 100-gigawatt smile he used to sport, but something softer. A little hesitant as if he didn’t quite know if he was _allowed_ to smile or not.

He cleared his throat. ”I would like to use this opportunity,” he started with a funny air of formality, ”to ask you, Lucy Joan Carlyle, to officially move back into this humble abode.”

With a flourish, he offered me a key, holding it in the palm of his hand. I recognised it to be my old one – the one I had dropped in the mailbox when I had left months ago. A keychain had been added to it though with two small charms in the form of a skull and a rapier. He blew out his cheeks and held his breath, waiting for my response.

Even if I hadn’t wanted to, I couldn’t help the grin that spread on my face. It made me happy that he didn’t just assume that I was already living there like everyone else seemed to.

I pretended to play it cool in the same mocking tone. “Well, whatever. My stuff’s already there, isn’t it?”

He huffed a small laugh of relief and dangled the key in front of me. I grabbed it and studied the small charms.

Holly had gone ahead in front of us and was waiting in front of the door. Lockwood supported me on the way up to the house

“I really need to fix those tiles.” He mumbled when he realised exactly how uneven they were. There was nothing like helping an injured friend or a senior citizen to call attention to missing, - or broken parts of a pathway.

Holly was holding the door open and when I stepped into the hall, I was immediately engulfed by the lovely scent of George’s signature stew. We followed the smell to the kitchen where a surprise lay waiting.

A small package was lying on the kitchen table and George was glaring at it as if its very existence had offended him. On top of it a head of broccoli laid with a pink ribbon around the stem tied in a neat bow.

I laughed out loud when I saw it and the others looked at me strangely.

“Here, Holly. Catch” I threw the broccoli to Holly, but almost hit her in the face with it. I winced.

Under the broccoli was an envelope with my name on it in swirling letters. I ripped it open to reveal a small card. George stood with arms crossed in front of his chest, the very image of consternation. Lockwood was leaning against the far wall, looking at me with a guarded expression and Holly was leaning forward in curiosity, holding the broccoli like a bride about to walk down the aisle.

_Dearest Lucy_

_I figured you would like to have this back._

_Love, Quill_

_PS: I finally bought a new sofa._

I shook my head and chuckled in exasperation before opening the package. In it was the skirt I had worn the night of my attack, washed and folded neatly enough to rival Holly. I snorted in amusement and closed the package back up. I put it onto a nearby chair and looked around at the organised chaos that was the kitchen. They hadn’t replaced the thinking cloth which made me strangely happy.

“Hey! Who spilled tea on my Wraith?” I exclaimed when I saw one of my best drawings covered in brown spots.

Like that, the tension was broken. George returned to his stew. Lockwood’s cheeks pinked a little and he scratched the back of his head, revealing himself as the culprit. Holly shook her head and put the broccoli on the table before starting to fix things for tea. She automatically tidied up the vegetable peelings George had left behind as she waited for the water to boil.

Lockwood came over to me and held out a hand, prompting me to stand up.

“You know George’s stew takes a while to cook.”

I took his hand which was cold to the touch and he helped me up the stairs to my room. Holly had changed the sheets and put fresh flowers in a vase on the dresser. The window was open, and the combined scent of fresh air and new sheets was making me drowsy. I'd been told that I would still be sleeping a lot for the next few weeks.

I sat down on the bed and Lockwood went to sit on the chair next to it. He frowned when he saw Quill’s Fittes t-shirt which Holly had folded and left there. He grabbed it with two fingers and put it on the floor before sitting down.

“Lucy I -" he started before interrupting himself. He took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Luce.” He said softly.

I shook my head lightly. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I went of my own free will.”

“I pushed it” he bit his lip. “I’m supposed to be the leader here -"

“Not _my_ leader,” I interrupted. “I’m still an independent operative.” I don’t know why that was so important to me to point out.

Lockwood huffed a small laugh “No, I suppose I’m not,” he scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably, “But to be honest I’d hoped that now that you’re moving back in, you might consider coming back on the team as well. Permanently.” He looked at me with that hopeful little smile, which was incredibly hard to resist.

I bit my lip. “I don’t know, Lockwood. I would like to take some time to think about it.”

He frowned and gave a little huff. “Is this because of Kipps?” his expression was somehow pinched, and he was breathing heavily. I hadn’t seen him like this since I moved out. Which was ironic because I had just moved back in.

“I – why on earth would Quill have anything to do with it?”

He sighed heavily “I suppose he doesn’t” he gave a thin-lipped smile, but he didn’t look at me. “You should get some rest before dinner.”

He patted my knee and left.

Needless to say, rest did not come easily.

...

Dinner was a strange affair. Lockwood pretended that everything was fine, and I went along with it. I just wanted to put the awkwardness behind us and start over. Unfortunately, there were some things we couldn’t leave behind entirely.

“We need to talk about what happened with the Winkmans.” I declared when we had finished eating.

Lockwood shifted in his seat in obvious discomfort.

I put a hand on his and gave it a small squeeze. “I mean the things we learned, not the things that went wrong. We need to find out where to go from here.”

He gave me a small grateful smile.

“If you’re still interested in helping me of course.” I added

Lockwood scoffed and George looked at me like I had gone daft, which to be fair was a general expression of his, so it wasn’t much different from usual.

Holly shook her head and got up to clean the plates off the table.

“Of course, we’ll help, Luce.” Lockwood said softly.

“Good. Because I think things could be more complicated than we thought.” I looked around at each of them seriously.

“I realised who that man was – from the backroom with the Sources. I knew I’d seen him before – his name is Johnson. As far as I understand, he works at Rotwell Institute.” I looked at Holly, who frowned.

Lockwood looked at her too. “What do you know, Hol?” He leaned forwards with his elbows on the table.

“That’s probably Saul Johnson. He’s one of the directors of the institute, but the institute is rather separate from the rest of the organisation. How do you know him?” Holly asked.

“I told you about that case with the mummified head I was on for Rotwell. I had Farnaby as a Supervisor,” Lockwood made a face, “But this Johnson fellow was there as well. Would that be normal Rotwell procedure? I haven’t worked with them before.”

Holly frowned. “No, I haven’t heard of anything like that. As I said, the institute is separate. They have their own research facilities and their own laboratories.”

“So, they have facilities _outside_ Regent Street?” Lockwood questioned. I could see the cogs turning and his excitement gradually returning.

Holly nodded eagerly “Yes, Regent Street is just the main office. The research facilities are all outside London.”

“Lucy, what did Johnson do when you were at that case?” George asked as he stood to reach the biscuit tin.

I sighed, trying to remember. “It was as if he was supervising Farnaby. Farnaby was certainly put out that Johnson had witnessed that we – or rather _I_ hadn’t followed protocol.” I huffed when I recalled the memory. The irritation came right back along with it.

Lockwood grinned at me. Maybe coming back wouldn’t be such a bad idea. At least I wouldn’t have to work with people like Farnaby.

“Farnaby did say something though,” I remembered. “He thought that Johnson would have been interested in working with the Source at the Institute, but Johnson said that he couldn’t take it back with him because of the new DEPRAC-regulations that say that all Type Two’s had to be destroyed…” I trailed off. The implications were staggering.

George cleared his throat. “Do you remember when Kipps,” George’s eyes darted to Lockwood whose eyes narrowed a fraction, “when Kipps told us that Barnes wasn’t his own man?”

“Johnson couldn’t take the Source with him, but he didn’t seem too torn up about it. Of course, he wasn’t because he knew he would see it again later.” I said hollowly “Those papers he had wasn’t for supervising Farnaby. He was making a bloody shopping list.”

I gratefully accepted when George offered me a biscuit. Holly had put the kettle on and stood leaning against the kitchen counter with a deep frown. Not a typical expression for her.

George continued. “Rotwell influences DEPRAC and they make new regulations that state that all type two’s have to be destroyed immediately, only they have Winkman’s people collect the Sources through corrupt furnace workers and they gather more Sources through the relic-men.”

“What the hell do they need all those Sources for?” I asked, not expecting an answer, but George was quick to deliver, nonetheless.

“Do you remember the hissy fit Kipps threw because Rotwell agents arrived at the bone chamber underneath Aickmere’s first?”

Lockwood nodded. “You’re thinking that the Rotwell agents already knew where they were going?”

“Either that or they were alerted automatically as soon as we called DEPRAC.” George shrugged.

“DEPRAC has a mole.” Lockwood concluded.

George snorted “If I’m right, and I usually am, DEPRAC is one giant molehill. We can’t trust anyone.”

“There, George. You see? If this really is true, the worst we could have done would have been to call DEPRAC about the relic-men and lean back.” Lockwood slapped his hand against the table.

“Sure, Lockwood. You win that argument” George rolled his eyes.

Lockwood winced. “I sort of wish I hadn’t.”

Holly put down tea for each of us. “I think we should get to the bottom of this.” She said with a small voice, staring at the table. “I can make a list of the different Rotwell facilities I know.”

“Something entirely different we need to talk about,” I had to add to the doom and gloom, “is that Adelaide Winkman along with several relic-men and Johnson escaped from Vauxhall. With Julius in prison and Leopold still in a coma, Adelaide will be on the warpath. I don’t think that any one of us should be alone.”

Lockwood scratched his neck and frowned in contemplation. “That might prove hard, Luce. You’re not ready to get back in the field yet. I’m not taking any more chances, but at the same time, we have several cases lined up. Some of them could probably be taken care of by two members of the team, but some of the harder ones will definitely need three agents.”

“I don’t need to hinder the team, Lockwood. I could come with you on cases and stay in an iron circle!” I argued.

George snorted. “Yes, because you have _such_ a great history of following orders and staying put.”

I felt myself going a bit pink.

“Maybe she could stay with Kipps.” Holly suggested. I blinked in surprise.

Lockwood spluttered. He had just taken a sip of his tea and it had dribbled all the way down his front.

George coughed in order to cover his laugh.

“Lucy can’t –“ Lockwood started, but Holly lifted a hand to cut him off.

“Just when we’re out on cases. Considering the fact that he’s effectively saved her twice now, I believe that he has proved that he can be trusted to protect Lucy.” She argued. Lockwood scoffed.

“He also isn’t working for Fittes anymore, so he won’t be going out on cases and will have plenty of time to spend with her.” She continued and lifted an eyebrow at Lockwood, as if daring him to give her a good counterargument. He looked at Holly as if she had somehow betrayed him.

Normally I would have balked at people talking about me as if I wasn’t there, but while Holly made sense, I also knew that with the way Lockwood had been reacting lately as soon as anyone even dared to mention Quill, I wouldn’t have had the courage to do it myself.

Eventually, Lockwood sighed heavily. “It’s up to you, Luce. What do you want to do?”

“I’m not sure,” I pursed my lips, weighing my options. There weren’t a lot of them.

Lockwood’s eyes softened. “Don’t say no because I’m being silly.”

“Well,” I shrugged, “he did write that he bought a new sofa.”

…

It had been a nice first evening back. The only thing that dampened my spirit was the way Lockwood ran hot and cold. I felt like I was walking on eggshells and it was exhausting to have to censor everything I said. While he could just barely come to terms with the idea of me staying with Quill out of necessity, it was clear that mentioning him in a friendly context was a bad idea. I didn’t like that their old rivalry had started back up, even if it seemed to be one-sided. We could accomplish so much more if we worked together. I supposed Quill having to come to the rescue put a dent in Lockwood’s pride.

Pride would have to take the backseat though, because the next morning the newspaper arrived with a headline showing that the people after us meant business.

BREAK-IN AT HOSPITAL: _Two nurses killed_

Two nurses – two of the ones who had cared for me for a week, had been killed the night before. Their photos were printed directly beneath the headline. They had been found, stuffed inside in a store-cupboard with their throats slit.

If it hadn’t been an attempt, it was definitely a message.

I looked at Lockwood after reading it. I was close to crying; this was my fault. If I hadn’t been there, these two women would most certainly still be alive. Holly hugged me from the side, but Lockwood wouldn’t look at me.

He sighed heavily, “Call Kipps. We have a case tonight.” Was all he said before leaving the kitchen. He went downstairs. I imagined Floating Joe wouldn’t stay alive much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A piece of broccoli is actually called a bouquet. At least it is in my native language.  
> What do you think about the interactions? I have doubts.
> 
> Please consider taking a moment to leave a kudo or a review.


	11. No More Waking Up Like That

I hadn’t expected _all of them_ to come, but considering the entertainment it provided, I certainly wasn’t complaining.

As soon as I opened the door, Lucy pushed past me in a huff, threw off her boots and made her way through as if she owned the place. My guess was that there had been some sort of argument in the taxi on the way and she wanted to put a bit of distance between herself and her friends, but the sheer familiarity with my house she displayed, obviously sent her friends reeling.

They each came through the door hesitantly as if they were entering cave of dangerous mysteries with hidden traps and no treasure. Tony sat down on the small bench I had in the hall and slowly took off his shoes too. He blew out his cheeks and shifted a bit awkwardly as the others also followed Lucy’s example and pulled off shoes and boots. I was surprised that Tony didn’t just walk in with his dirty footwear just because he could. I pointed them towards to the dining room and went to hunt Lucy down.

I found her in the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe when I saw her banging stuff around. She had already put the kettle on, found the tea and was in the process of aggressively pulling cups out of the cabinet.

It did something funny to me, seeing her be, if a little aggressive, then somehow at home. It felt dangerous and not necessarily in a bad way.

I shook my head and felt myself smile a little. I put a hand on her shoulder which made her jump. “I don’t know what’s got you in such a huff, but you probably ought to go sit down. That ankle of yours still isn’t healed. Let me do the rest.”

She scowled at me and looked like she was about to tell me off, but I gave her a pointed look. I was ninety-two percent certain that whatever she was angry about wasn’t my fault and I wouldn’t let her take it out on me.

She sighed heavily and rubbed her face. “Fine.” She huffed and shoved the cup she was holding into my hand.

I shook my head and led her by the shoulder past the kitchen table and into the dining room where the table was considerably bigger. The others stood there like awkward sheep, looking around and taking everything in.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” I shrugged and was amused by the way they continued their hesitant behaviour as if the chairs might be boobytrapped. Lucy already slumped in her seat with her arms crossed like a petulant toddler.

I went in the kitchen to finish the job Lucy had started. When I came back with the tray, they had obviously been talking, but stopped as soon as I walked in.

“So – Not that you lot aren’t welcome anytime,” I started, perhaps a little sarcastically, “but I had only expected Lucy. To what do I owe the questionable honour?” I smirked.

No one looked particularly comfortable. Lucy looked pointedly at Tony, prompting him to speak.

“Right. Kipps. Er… What I mean to say is… Thank you… You know. For your help with the Winkmans.” He almost looked like he was in physical pain and I was probably enjoying it far too much. Cubbins and Munro were both studying their teas intensely.

I decided to put him out of his misery. “Whatever, Tony.” I waved him off as if it were nothing. “It wasn’t as if I had anything better to do.”

My mother would _strongly_ disagree.

“But you were _fired_.” Cubbins stated in confusion.

I lifted an eyebrow at Lucy. I was surprised she hadn’t told them.

“I’d been thinking about leaving for a while now anyway.” I shrugged, sitting down. “But something tells me that thanking me or asking about my employment status isn’t what you came for. A quick thank you could easily be delivered at the door, so what else do you want?”

Tony looked at me as if he didn’t know me at all. Which I supposed was right. We hadn’t known each other for a while now.

“But I thought you loved it at Fittes.”

I thought about it a bit. “I loved _being an agent_. More than anything.” I smiled ruefully. “But now things are different. My rapier hasn’t seen any plasm for ages and I’m not good for much other than sending kids into danger without knowing what I’m sending them into. Being supervisor has its benefits I suppose – Fittes _generally_ treat their people well. Division leader is even more lucrative, but not what I really want – it’s all paperwork, politics and kissing arse and I can easily do that somewhere else. It frankly sucks to be so close to the fight and not be able to participate. Then I’d rather be doing something entirely different. But again – I imagine you don’t particularly give a shit about my career, so _what do you want?_ ”

Tony bit his lower lip like he didn’t know how to continue. Cubbins saved him.

“What do you know about DEPRAC?”

I snorted. “I know they’ve offered me a job.” Lucy’s eyes snapped to mine. “I’ve turned it down though because I might as well be working for Fittes or Rotwell. It’s almost the same job. Especially Rotwell have their fingers in that cake. But don’t you know that already, Munro? You used to work there, didn’t you?”

The secretary turned agent looked at me and shook her head. “There are representatives from both Fittes and Rotwell on the board as advisors. Other than that, I don’t know anything.”

“Well, Fittes and Rotwell do have an equal amount of people on the board, but I know that one Fittes objective is to place former Fittes agents in the upper management in order to gain more power through loyalty. All nepotism and probably the worst kept secret in the company. But Rotwell is much more powerful at DEPRAC as things are now. They’re supplying DEPRAC with most of their weaponry and protective gear. They have lots of prototypes they’re testing in the field too. Of course, the Rotwell agents are testing as well, but they offered DEPRAC free technology, probably for influence.”

“How do you know so much?” Munro asked.

I just shrugged. “I’m observant, I guess and while they’re all about discretion in the field, Fittes supervisors and leaders are all about gossiping and bragging at the office.”

“Oh, Fittes supervisors bragging? Can’t imagine that.” Cubbins remarked and I flipped him off.

“Anyway,” I continued, “Rotwell’s logo is on all DEPRAC's stuff and I’ve always had somewhat of an interest in different types of weaponry so I may or may not have examined most of their things.” I scratched the back of my neck.

Tony snorted.

“So Rotwell Institute makes itself indispensable to DEPRAC and gains control in that way.” Lucy concluded, speaking properly for the first time.

“That’s what I would do if I was trying to control a public institution.” I said with a shrug.

“Thought about that a lot, have you?” Cubbins snarked.

I smirked “You, more than me, Cubbins.”

Lucy snorted and Tony only shrugged. They both knew I was right.

“Now, do you mind filling me in on what this is all about?”

Tony huffed an irritable sigh and looked at the clock “Lucy can tell you, I suppose. We need to get going. Think we have a Shining Boy in Peckham.”

“Lovely. Have fun.” I winked at him and he rolled his eyes at me.

Cubbins and Munro got up and moved towards the hall. I followed them, leaving Tony to have a small whispered argument with Lucy.

“Lover's tiff?” I asked Lucy after the others had left

The look I received in return was clearly designed to make me cower and I could tell by the way her knuckles turned white, that she was annoyed that it didn’t work.

“We’re not – no! It wasn’t.”

I chuckled. Sure, it wasn’t.

“Do you want more tea?” I asked, instead of pointing out the obvious.

Lucy sighed and followed me into the kitchen, bringing her own cup with her along with the ones her friends had left behind. She gave me hers and put the other three in the sink.

I put the kettle on, and she watched me curiously as I pulled out what I liked to call my cleaning drawer. It had some stuff for basic maintenance along with a small pile of things that needed to be cared for. It was handy to have it close for whenever I had a few moments to spare.

“So – tell me. What’s going on?” I prompted and picked up a small dagger I had been meaning to fix up for a while.

She frowned at me. “Isn’t that a bit impractical for ghosts? You’d need to get much too close.”

“That’s not what it’s for.” I told her and started inspecting the blade. “Now, don’t beat around the bush. Tell me.”

Lucy huffed. “You know I’m a really great Listener.”

“A really modest one too.” I remarked and got a tea towel in my face for it.

“I can talk to Type Three’s” She blurted and covered her mouth with her hand.

I dropped the dagger. “You’re shitting me.” I looked at her face, trying to determine whether she was lying.

She shook her head, wide-eyed.

“Shit.” I blinked slowly and something occurred to me “Wait – When you came for Cubbins and me back on that case with the bone-glass, you told Joplin that you had – you _have a Type Three?”_

My eyes snapped to hers and I was surprised to see that she looked quite put out.

“I lost it.”

I had an awfully hard time processing this. Type Three ghosts were so rare they were close to being a myth. The only one who had supposedly been able to talk to them was Marissa Fittes and there had been talk at the agency about her not being entirely of sound mind.

Statistically, there was much larger chance that Lucy had developed some sort of psychosis.

“Are you... entirely sure?” I asked carefully. “What do the others say?”

That earned me an indignant look and another tea towel, but I caught this one before it hit me.

“I’m not crazy you git!”

I chuckled “Where did you even get a Type Three then?” I had to ask.

“George nicked it from Fittes just before he left" she grinned cheekily.

I was not surprised in any way, shape or form.

I huffed a little laugh. “Good old Cubbins. Always had to have the last word.”

“That’s the one.” She smiled a little and I was happy she was cheering up a bit.

“What do you even talk to a ghost about? Meaning of life? Death?” I wondered.

She snorted, “Mostly it just encourages me to commit homicide. I think because it wants to live victariously through me”

I cleared my throat, “You mean vicariously?”

“Yes. That. I was close,” she waved her hand around impatiently.

I loved the way her cheeks turned pink. It was fun.

The water boiled and I gave up on the dagger. I slammed the drawer shut and washed my hands before fixing the tea.

“It helps me from time to time when I’m out on cases.”

I coughed a little. “On case – on cases? You’re just casually bringing along a Type Three ghost in what – your rucksack?”

“Well not anymore!” she shrugged.

That _so_ wasn’t my point.

“I’m still not entirely convinced you aren’t crazy.”

She slapped my shoulder, probably because she couldn’t find any more tea towels lying around.

“Seriously,” I continued. “You’re telling me that you’ve been running around with a homicidal Type Three ghost in your rucksack and you _trust it_ enough to have your back?”

She scoffed, “Well, I don’t trust it _implicitly_ , but it’s been helpful in the past.”

“So, it’s what – like a friend?” I asked.

She drew in a breath and blew out her cheeks before answering. “I suppose, of sorts.”

I shook my head. “I don’t get you, Lucy Carlyle.”

She gave me a small smile “So you’ve said.”

…

We took our tea with us to the living room where Quill showed me his new sofa with a flourish of his hand. It was the one he held _my_ tea in, because he didn’t want me sloshing it all over the place by ‘hobbling around like a cripple'. I hated that I was still walking unsteadily.

“Tadaa!”

I sniggered because he looked like a very bad magician. “It looks nice.”

“Well, it _is_ nice. And comfortable. No more waking up like – well uh... like _that”_ he finished awkwardly, busying himself with rummaging around in a drawer.

“Yeah. No more waking up _like that_.” I echoed and was annoyed that it came out a little breathy. “But I _did_ sleep on your old sofa once before, so it _was_ possible.”

He shrugged “Perhaps, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable, was it?”

No, it wasn’t. I remembered having to curl up entirely and struggle keeping my legs from falling down. But still - I'd slept in worse places.

I limped over to sit in one end of the sofa. It really was comfortable – soft, but not so soft that you felt like drowning in it and made in fabric rather than leather.

I smiled when Quill dropped down two coasters on the table to put the tea on and I thought of all the rings from cups and mugs all around on virtually all surfaces in Portland Row. This was certainly something different.

“So,” he started. “What do you want to do tonight?”

“Well, I was thinking about this.” I told him and showed him my arm. They hadn’t removed the stitches at the hospital, and I thought it was time. Not that I was an expert.

He laughed “Do all your visits have to be injury related? Because I'd rather you didn’t hurt yourself just to come to see me.”

I shook my head in exasperation. “I feel like I get injured enough already.”

“You do. I have no idea how your success rate as an agent is so high when you’re so clumsy.” He remarked.

I tried to slap his shoulder with the hand I was already holding out towards him, but he caught it before I could make contact and held it still so he could inspect the wound. His thumb drew small circles in my palm, not unlike what he had done when I was in the hospital, but it was somehow different now when I wasn’t in a hospital bed.

It tickled, but I didn’t stop him.

“I think it’s time to remove the stitches,” he concluded and went down to the basement, supposedly to get his extensive first aid kit.

I sat, immobile in the sofa, trying to stabilise my breathing. It was embarrassing the way I suddenly had trouble to avoid blushing. I had managed an entire week of this sort of interaction with Quill. Why was it different now?

He returned, bringing the kit with him and put it down near the table. Then he went into the kitchen and I tried not to sweat. I put it down to nerves – after all, I _did_ hate getting stitches removed.

He came back, carrying a towel and two bowls. One was full of water.

He pulled out the things he would need which was tweezers, small gauze pads and a special scissor that looked more like a nail clipper than anything else. Before getting to work, he put on gloves and I could pretend that this was just a professional situation. I imagined that I wasn’t trembling and that I couldn’t feel the heat from his hand through the gloves.

He made quick work of the stitches and pulled them out carefully with the tweezers

When that was done, he used the gauze pads and the water to clean the wound and dabbed it dry. It was all very neat.

And Lockwood was right, it did make a cool scar.

Lockwood.

I had a strange squeezing feeling in my stomach and I bit my lip.

“There. That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

He chuckled a little and started tidying up. I caught his arm before he went back in the kitchen

“Thank you.” I whispered.

His green eyes sparkled, and I could have sworn his eyes dropped to my lips for perhaps a fraction of a second. I know mine dropped to his.

“You’re welcome.” He murmured with a small smile and left with the things.

I leaned back in the sofa and I realised that I was still affected by the concussion because my head was spinning. I closed my eyes and sighed. I felt the sofa dip slightly when Quill sat down at the other end.

“Maybe you should rest a little,” He suggested, “I have some paperwork to entertain myself with.”

I only nodded and sunk a little lower in the sofa. I felt a blanket covering me and Quill lifted my feet gently, so they were lying nice and warm in his lap. I was out in seconds.

...

After being an agent for years and then supervisor, it was hard to get used to a normal sleep schedule. For this reason, I still tended to be up most of the night.

That’s why I was still awake at two a.m. when I heard a knock at the door.

I put the ring binder on the table and lifted Lucy’s feet off me, gently not to wake her up.

It could be anyone really, from Winkman's people to Kate, to Tony so I kept my rapier close.

Turned out it was Tony, almost covered head to toe in plasm.

I was sorely tempted to just stab him a little for the hell of it and blame it on thinking that he was one of Winkman’s people. I didn’t think he’d buy it though.

I put a finger to my mouth to indicate for him to stay quiet. He took off his plasm-covered shoes and followed me into the living room.

I heard him sigh when he saw Lucy sleeping and I glanced at him as he stood there, staring at his employee.

I wondered if I looked like just a big a moron when _I_ looked at her.

I caught his eyes and indicated going towards the kitchen. When we got there, I pointed him towards a chair and he plopped down, obviously too tired for any antagonism

“What the hell happened to you?” I asked and started making him a sandwich and a hot chocolate. He looked like he needed it.

He shook his head and scratched his neck. “Wasn’t a Shining Boy. It was a Changer.”

“And so, _of course,_ you followed the manual.” I remarked, shoving as much sarcasm into my tone as the sentence could contain.”

He looked at me sheepishly “I charged it.”

I know I had told Lucy that he wasn’t an idiot, but I strongly considered taking back that statement.

I shook my head at him “How long are you going to keep doing this, Tony?”

“Doing what?” he asked defensively.

I sighed and put the plate and the hot chocolate in front of him and sat down at the table as well.

“How long has it been now? Five years? Six?”

He rubbed his face tiredly and looked much older than he was. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You never want to talk about it. At least not with me,” I rolled with my eyes, “but you have other people. People who care about you,” I pointed towards the living room, “talk to Lucy or Munro. Hell, talk to Cubbins! He probably has the emotional range of a constipated walrus, but it’s better than committing suicide by stupidity.”

Tony smiled a little, “George is surprisingly sensitive, but you know it’s not… they’re my employees.”

Jesus.

I scoffed, “on a scale of one to ten, how offended do you think they would be if you said that to their faces?”

He had the decency to blush.

“I think you should go home, Tony. Let Lucy stay here for tonight.”

Tony’s jaws tightened and he scowled at me, standing up.

I raised my hands placatingly “Easy boy, I’m not doing anything to her that she doesn’t want me to.”

Maybe my disarming gesture was slightly diluted by the grin I couldn’t help spreading on my face because Tony looked ready to punch me in the nose.

“I’ll be back in the morning” He ground out.

I shook my head at him and grabbed his shoulder, trying to be serious. "I mean it, okay? Slow down. You're no good to anyone if you're dead."

He pulled away from me and plastered a fake grin on his face "I'll see what I can do."

With that, he walked out.

Halfway he turned around and whispered "Your cheese sucks by the way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more Kipps in this chapter and I felt like I got his character a bit more right this time.  
> Thoughts?


	12. I Get By With -

It wasn't an awfully long list of Rotwell Institute’s research facilities Holly came up with, but I was impressed that she remembered as many as she did. She remembered everything from Steve Rotwell’s own calendar, so if we found anything on either of these sites, there was a good chance that the president of the large company was either involved or at the very least aware of the things going on.

There were six locations all written down neatly with addresses and everything and some of them even with the name of the person in charge.

I couldn’t even remember my phone number on the best of days but in my defence, I didn’t call home very often.

Which is a horrible defence when you think about it.

Lockwood had been irritable after their case in Peckham and after seeing his coat, I concluded that the evening obviously hadn’t gone as planned. Holly was confident she could clean the coat though, which should cheer him back up.

I had committed to living at Portland Row, I had officially moved out of my small flat in Tooting (I did _not_ get my deposit back) and I was willing to pay rent and everything. I had a bit of money saved up for it, but Lockwood hadn’t asked and it was somehow implied that if we had to talk about the housing situation, we had to talk about the work situation too and I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do yet.

The good part was that was my ankle was starting to get better. I could walk normally and even run, but not too far and it still felt fragile in a way. I figured I was ready to go out on cases in a few days. Lockwood & co. had had a few more cases since the night I spent at Quills house, but none of them required more than two people. Holly or George would stay at home babysitting me.

Well, George would stay in his room and sometimes do experiments at the kitchen table. Sometimes he would ask me random questions like about the resonance when I heard Visitors speaking or he would question me about the bone chamber underneath Aickmere’s. One evening he even tried to hypnotise me to see if I might remember more.

He was also tinkering with the goggles we had gotten from Fairfax ages ago. Ever since he nicked them, he’d take them out from time to time, but recently he had been studying them more often. Whenever I tried asking about them, he would just shrug.

I’d come to appreciate Holly more and more; If I had her job, I was much more likely to stab someone than smother them with diplomacy. I wouldn’t survive half an hour. Or the clients wouldn’t.

She spent one entire evening cursing more than I thought her capable of, because there had been a mix-up with the clients. Angry people had been calling all day to complain that she had sent out bills to them even though _we_ had cancelled their appointment and new customers were turning up out of the blue. She was frantically trying to fix things because none of the changes were in the calendar.

It was all good and it was nice to be there with them.

Something that _wasn’t_ nice was Lockwood.

Or he was polite enough and everything, but he confused me.

I had reached a point of confusion that I had never seen before, which was saying something.

He had asked me to move back in, but I could swear that now that I had, it was as if he was trying to avoid me. Other than at the occasional shared meal, I almost didn’t see him. We didn’t talk, other than short messages.

There were small episodes every once in a while. Once I fell asleep on the sofa in the living room and I woke up under Lockwood’s dressing gown which someone had covered me with like a blanket.

Lockwood didn’t say anything, but George wouldn’t have bothered covering me and Holly would have taken an _actual_ blanket. It was more like Lockwood to use whatever he had on hand or on his back in this case I supposed.

I hoped we could somehow move back to simpler times. To before Holly came along, only _with_ Holly.

Lockwood, George and I had a great thing going and then we rocked the boat, and I was the one who fell out. That wasn’t Holly’s fault though and I wanted to have her on board, but we needed to find our balance. It seemed like the only problem was that for me, a part of the equation was missing.

If I were to stay within my boat metaphor, it was as if I only had one leg in the boat and one leg was in the water. That was obviously a problem for the others as well because it messed up the balance, but their solution was to pull my leg out of the water whereas I was tempted to jump out of the boat entirely.

Because I missed Quill.

It bothered me that I missed him because I didn’t know why. I missed his sarcasm, his wit and his calm, quiet presence but looking at it objectively, George could provide those same things.

It _really_ wasn’t the same though.

I hadn’t seen Quill since I fell asleep on his sofa. I had woken up that morning to a plate of scones, a note and a key.

A key that was now hanging on my new keychain along with the key to Portland Row.

It didn’t mean anything of course, him giving me a key to his house. For heaven’s sake, Bobby Vernon had a key.

Which made me think about the scene Bobby had walked in on.

 _That_ made me wonder which sort of scenes _I_ might walk in on myself if I should ever use the key.

I shut down that train of thoughts fairly quickly as it made me feel a little bit sick and decided not to use the key unless it was a case of emergency.

My problem was that while I missed Quill, I was certain that the others _did not_ and that made it harder because there was no one I could talk to about it.

Not even the skull which I had to admit that I also missed dearly. That disgusting old pot of plasm would insult me, mock me, encourage me to kill people, but it would provide me with some perspective and if nothing else I could rant to it until I went blue in the head and it couldn’t run away and it couldn’t tell anyone else.

Now I had no one.

For this reason, I was punishing Lady Esmeralda.

I had been in the rapier room for ages, taking my many frustrations out on that poor dummy. I imagined I was back home, and I was slashing at that poor oak tree in my little clearing. I had no idea how long I had been down there. Sweat was running down my back, my muscles were screaming, the fresh scar on my arm was pulling uncomfortably and my ankle ached even though it was bandaged.

I knew that I had blisters in my hand. I could feel them biting in my palm, but I wouldn’t stop - I _couldn’t_ stop.

My body was running on auto pilot and muscle memory alone.

“Lucy?”

The interruption made me drop the rapier with a clang. I dropped down on my knees next to it.

George came and kneeled next to me and put a cold, pasty hand on my shoulder. I looked at him and what he saw must have scared him because he looked worried, which was not a typical expression for him.

“Lucy, what would you like me to do?”

That’s when I realised that the thing that had worried him was the fact that I was crying.

“I- I don’t know.” I looked at him and I felt completely hollow. I felt nothing and thought nothing, I was just an empty shell of myself. All that fire everyone always said I had, was gone at that moment and it must have scared the hell out of George because he scrambled out of there and up the stairs.

I wiped my cheeks, getting chalk dust all over my face, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I flopped down on my back and tried to catch my breath again.

A while passed. I don’t know if it was a few minutes, but it might have been hours. Then the small clicks of Holly’s low-heeled shoes sounded outside the door. I heard her rushing towards me, but I didn’t actually notice her until she was all I could see.

She gave me a sad, understanding smile even though I have no idea what she understood because I didn’t understand anything at all. She took my arm and pulled me up into a seated position. Something that would have taken considerable effort. She put her arms around me, not caring that I was ruining her clothes with my sweat, chalk dust and my tears.

Then the dam broke completely, and I held Holly like my life depended on it while I was overcome by sobs that shook my body in powerful convulsions.

Everything washed through me. The fear from the attack, the guilt about the nurses who had been killed, the tension, and the horror of what we had been through and what was still happening.

I didn’t remember a time that I had ever cried like that. Not even after Wythburn Mill.

Even that pain was felt in this breakdown too. I cried and sobbed out all the despair that had filled me. I cried for the confusion and especially the loneliness I felt.

I cried for the fear and guilt I felt because I was still afraid of Lockwood’s recklessness and I still feared to be the cause of his death but even so, I had still come back. I cried for the feeling of abandonment I got every time Lockwood would get up and leave a room as soon as I entered.

Eventually I calmed down even though I was still trembling. Tremors raked through me and little by little, my fit was reduced to shivers.

I had slid down and was lying with my head on Holly’s lap as she stroked my hair.

George, bless him, came down to check on us every now and then. He brought a blanket and tea, as if we were having a picnic. He obviously had no idea what he was doing, but the fact that George made that effort spoke volumes. I felt more cared for than I had ever been by indifferent and sometimes abusive parents and overbearing sisters. That sort of thinking almost made me sob again. I should be grateful to them because they had given me life and raised me. Without them I wouldn’t even be here, but I was still bitter.

“I don’t want Lockwood to see me like this.” I whispered to them.

George looked deeply uncomfortable like he'd rather not see it either, but Holly smiled gently.

“I sent him out on a very long and complicated errand as soon as George told me you weren’t feeling well.”

I sniffled a little, “I don’t want him to think that I’m weak.”

“Luce,” George cleared his throat. “Of course, you aren’t weak.” He told me quietly and knelt beside me. I had the idle thought that I was happy that it was his front I was looking at because whoever came up behind him was sure to get an eyeful.

“What we do – it’s awful. We seem to forget that just fifty years ago, no kids had to go through this. We’re not built to withstand this sort of horrific work and not sleeping properly. We get so filled with trauma and terror that there’s no room for anything else and then it doesn’t take too much pressure before we crack. Honestly, I’m surprised you've lasted as long as you have,” He finished bluntly.

“What George _means_ to say,” Holly sent him a pointed look, “is that you’re not alone. We’re all a little messed up.”

 _“_ I don’t see _you_ blubbering on the floor,” I croaked.

Holly smiled gently, “Lucy, you’re the most powerful Listener I’ve ever met. Probably the most powerful one I’ve ever even heard of. That makes you incredibly strong, but it also makes you equally vulnerable. There’s nothing wrong with that and it makes you the opposite of weak. We face terror on a daily basis, and we’re all affected by it.”

“We all do strange things to cope with it. I read and experiment and try to find a solution to make this stupid Problem go away, even though it’s probably futile.” George chuckled ruefully. “Holly bakes and tidies to a freakish degree -"

“Hey!” Holly protested and I chuckled a little

“- and how the hell do you think Lockwood became so good at fencing? You happen to talk to a Type Three ghost in a jar and now you lost it.”

“It isn’t fair.” I whispered a little petulantly.

“It never was.” George shrugged. “Now, the thing you need to do is decide if you can continue or not. Do you want to keep fighting and being an agent or do you want to chicken out and give up?”

“ _George_!” Holly admonished.

Give up?

It was tempting to lay here. Just drift away. I could go back north. Or maybe get a job at a bakery or something. Perhaps I could work at Arif’s.

But then something flared in me. It started in my chest. I refused to think something so clichéd like that it came from my heart, but it was somewhere in the general vicinity. It spread white-hot through me and filled me with defiance.

I was Lucy Bloody Carlyle. I was a great and powerful Listener. I could talk to Type Threes; I wouldn’t let anything stand in my way. Not Lockwood or Quill, not even myself. I was an _Agent_.

I pushed myself to stand and grabbed a piece of a ripped tea towel that was meant to be used for cleaning our rapiers and I angrily wrapped my blistered hand with it.

I squared my jaw

“Fight me" I sneered

“Ooh,” George grinned “Feisty.”

I looked at him and felt my own grin spread. “That’s right. Step over here and I’ll show you exactly how feisty I am.”

“I might just do that,” George tied the string of his sweatpants a little tighter so they wouldn’t fall down and grabbed a spare rapier.

I chuckled wetly. Holly looked very apprehensive and skittered out and up the stairs.

But I didn’t mind that she ran. I faced George at a brutal pace. I was absolutely ruthless. He wasn’t the best at fencing, and neither was I, but what I lacked in technique, I made up for in ferocity and playing dirty. Soon Holly re-joined us, now in a stylish training outfit.

I gave everything I had, not only using my rapier, but hitting and kicking as well. It almost turned into an all-out brawl.

Afterwards I collapsed completely. After a gruelling training session, a mental break-down and a ferocious fencing match, I was completely exhausted.

And I felt great. Not really myself, but something a bit harder and a bit stronger. Galvanised by my tears if I had to be poetic.

We all collapsed on the mat.

I swatted at George “Thank you"

“Both of you.” I squeezed Holly’s hand.

“That’s what friends are for.” Holly groaned, a bit sore.

“I dunno,” George panted. “We’re more like a co-worker-family-hybrid,”

That’s how Lockwood found us – sweaty, dirty and grinning like idiots.

He came in, and looked very confused for a moment, but eventually, he was apparently caught up in our collective joy and threw himself down between me and Holly, making the chalk dust fly.

He frowned minutely when he saw the tear tracks that were probably visible and if not that, my eyes were bound to be red. But I knew I was grinning like a loon and apparently it was infectious because he smiled back at me and grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers. He was more relaxed than he had been in what seemed to be forever and for a moment, it seemed like everything was going to be alright.

“We're going to Aldbury Castle,” he announced with a large smile.

“We’re going to _what?_ ” George moaned.

“Go pack a bag! We're leaving tomorrow.”

“For how long, Lockwood?” Holly asked. I figured she was on the way to getting used to Lockwood and his impulsiveness because she sounded more exasperated than frantic.

Lockwood shrugged. “A few days maybe. The place does sound rather haunted. Lots of interesting things.”

George and Holly got to their legs and tried to dust themselves off.

“Can I borrow your shower, Lucy?” Holly asked and I nodded at her. That was the least I could do after kicking her arse so profoundly.

Lockwood turned his head to look at me and gave me a wide grin and my hand a squeeze. “You’re coming too of course, Luce.”

I sighed deeply “Sure. I don’t think I have anything else to do anyway.” I smirked and sat up.

His smile lit up the room and it warmed be up because it was directed at me.

It was hard to say no to anything he said when he looked at me like that.

Sometimes I wondered how aware he was about the power those smiles of his held – they were powerful weapons indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was important to me. I wanted her to process some of all the shit she's been through and I doubt she would have done any sort of quiet contemplation. I also wanted to give Lucy the support she needed from her friends who weren't Lockwood or Kipps.  
> I just adore Holly like the "mum" of the group and I imagine that George would be fretting awkwardly in the back and then show affection in his own abrasive way.  
> I think we should all have a Holly and a George in our lives. The world would be a better place.
> 
> What do you guys think? Please leave a comment or a kudo or something - You know it'll make me happy


	13. Pearls Before Swine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is going to get a bit hairy, emotionally, but I promise it's not as bad as it looks.

_Lucy:_

The rest of the day passed in a flurry of activity as some days tend to do when one is in the company of Anthony Lockwood.

It was all about ordering fresh supplies, packing and organising. After my little fit downstairs, I really didn’t have the energy to run around like the house was on fire, but Lockwood was caught up by the thrill of whatever chase we were on that he didn’t tell us.

And when Lockwood was caught up by the thrill of the chase, _everyone_ was caught up by the thrill of the chase.

So, I pushed through the fatigue and the headache. Luckily, the others had offered to do the heavy things like preparing Iron chains and so I was down in the storage, packing up the smaller items we might need.

I was standing in front of the shelves, counting salt canisters.

A hand suddenly landed on my shoulder and I jumped, gave a little scream and accidentally threw salt on my would-be attacker.

It turned out to be Lockwood who had snuck up on me. He turned me around by the shoulder and looked at me with an amused smile.

“Careful there, Luce, I’m not a ghost yet,” he grinned

I surprisingly found myself being annoyed rather than swooning.

“That’s not funny, Lockwood.” I frowned at him.

Hi smile turned indulgent and perhaps a bit condescending.

“I’m sorry Luce. I can see that you’re a bit uh… sensitive today. Are you okay?”

I sighed. Was I okay? Obviously not. I didn’t feel like talking about it, but I didn’t know when I would get another chance, so I decided to grab the bull by the horns.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” I asked, looking him directly in the eye.

He looked taken aback at first, but then his cheeks turned pink and he scratched the back of his head. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

I huffed and turned back around “If you have to lie to me, at least have the decency to do it properly,” I hated than my voice sounded wobbly,

“If I’ve been avoiding you, it hasn’t been on purpose, Lucy.”

I tried to focus on the salt canisters again “Sure you haven’t. It’s the wind that just happens to carry you away every time I enter a room,”

“I just—it’s hard, Lucy,” he sighed heavily and turned me back around.

“Why is it hard?” I asked him. “Everything used to be so easy with us,” I felt tears starting to form again and looked down, angry at myself for not being able to control it.

He put a hand under my chin “Because every time I look at you, I see you on those train tracks,” he sighed, “and every time it’s _Kipps_ coming to the rescue,” he finished bitterly.

I slowly blinked, _“Quill?”_ I choked incredulously, “You’re angry because _Quill saved me?_ I think we should just be happy that I was saved _at all_!”

“It’s not that I’m angry,” Lockwood huffed in frustration, “I just feel—I feel like he’s taking you away from me.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“–and I know he'd been trying to take you away from the company, hasn’t he? Several times - all the way back since you met him! He even told me so!” Lockwood continued with his voice rising higher and higher “And now you won’t come back to the company! What am I supposed to believe?” he ended up half-yelling.

I laughed, perhaps a little hysterically because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“My reasons for leaving the company still stand! They’re the same now as when I left and the reason, I’m hesitant to return! And Quill was trying to _recruit_ me! Because I’m _good_!”

Lockwood scoffed, “Kipps doesn’t want you because you’re good– he just wants you because _I_ have you,” he rolled his eyes.

The tears started running down my cheeks.

”Try to say that sentence slowly inside your head and hear how absolutely _horrible_ a thing that was to say,” I told him with shaking voice, ”if you ever lose me, it’s not because Quill has _taken_ _me_ from you _._ I’m a _person_ , not your favourite rapier. If you ever lose me it'll be because _you_ _pushed_ me away. Quill is a good friend-"

“-but that’s not all he wants to be, is it?” Lockwood interrupted irritably.

“As opposed to you, apparently,” I sniffled bitterly and walked around him. ”You can pack your own damn salt,” I mumbled over my shoulder.

“Lucy, I’m sorry!” he called after me, but I kept on walking. He didn’t follow.

I walked out and halfway up the stairs; George was standing still. If he hadn’t just helped me earlier, I would be less tolerant about his blatant eavesdropping. His face was as unreadable as ever, but he put a hand on my arm and gave it a little squeeze. “Go rest, Luce. I’ll handle this.” I nodded and stepped upwards, but he didn’t let go of my arm.

“You know he doesn’t mean to do it, right. He doesn’t want to hurt you,” he mumbled.

I sighed, “Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but it obviously isn’t stopping him from doing it,”

George only nodded and released my arm.

I trudged the long way up all the stairs to my room in the attic. I gave the dresser a hard kick that didn’t feel very satisfying and flopped down on my bed. I fell asleep in seconds.

When I woke up again, it was dark outside. Lockwood sat next to my bed, silhouetted against the light. He was caressing the side of my face with cold fingers.

“I’m sorry, Luce,” he whispered when he saw I was awake.

I didn’t know what to say. _It’s okay_ or _I forgive you_? But it wasn’t and I didn’t. At least not yet, so I waited for him to keep talking or get out.

He sighed when I didn’t respond. “I don’t know what to do, Lucy,” he rubbed his face and he looked exhausted. “I feel like I’m hurting you no matter what I do. I care about you, you know.”

_Well, I’m in love with you_

“Every time I hurt you, I hurt myself and it feels so stupid and pointless,” he ran a hand through his hair.

“Then stop it.” I whispered.

He looked into my eyes and I could see he had been crying too. “How can I do that? Half the time I don’t even know that I’m hurting you until you’re already crying, or you’ve run away,”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m some sort of coward,” I growled,

“Or I make you angry.” He shrugged and looked at his sock-clad feet. Near it was one of the throwing knives I’d gotten from–

“Kipps gave you this, didn’t he?” Lockwood asked and picked it up.

I only nodded. I didn’t have the energy for another argument about Quill.

He sat for a while and studied it, turning it around so it caught the light again and again.

“It’s dangerous to leave blades like that on the floor, you know,” he told me conversationally, “Knowing Kipps, these things are wicked shar–shit!”

He predictably cut himself. I snatched the blade from his hand before he hurt himself further.

He stuck his bleeding thumb in his mouth, and I snorted.

“I must have dropped it earlier when I was packing.” I defended. “The others are in my bag.”

“You packed the – of course. They’re probably excellent weapons.”

I nodded. “Do you remember that time when I threw my rapier at Bickerstaff and almost pierced George’s nose in the process?”

He grinned and for a second, I saw the Lockwood I was in love with and somehow that made me incredibly sad because I realised how rare it was for him to smile that genuinely, these days.

“You want to learn properly, I take it?” he asked.

I nodded eagerly, “Can you show me?”

Lockwood grimaced. “No,” he sighed dejectedly, “you should – you should talk to Quill. He can do it. He’s a good teacher.”

I frowned, “If you’d rather I didn’t –“

“No, it’s fine, Lucy –“

“Is it though? Because earlier today you basically told me you couldn’t stand to look at me because Quill saved me. I’d hate to find out what happens if he actually teaches me something.”

Lockwood scratched the back of his head. “I’m sorry, Lucy,” he sighed “It’s just that I feel like you’re here, but at the same time, I can’t get you to come back to the company, so if you’re not a part of Lockwood and co, why _are_ you here?”

I looked incredulously at him “Why – you asked me to move back in, you idiot!”

“I just thought that you’d be a member of the team too! What’s to stop you from leaving again? And Kipps is ready there on the side-lines, and already tried to recruit you so –“

“Lockwood, Quill isn’t an agent anymore. What exactly do you think he would want me _for_?”

I’d never seen him blush so much in all the time I’d known him.

Then I realised the implications and turned pink as well. Especially since I had some visuals to back them up.

I took several deep breaths, trying to get my anger and my… something else under control.

“I just need to know, Lockwood,” I started with a shaking voice, “If I don’t re-join the company – do I have to find somewhere else to live?”

...

_Quill:_

“ _So, how are things in the land of unemployment?_ ”

“Cubbins?” I frowned and removed the receiver from my ear and stared at it, waiting for it to turn into something ridiculous like a banana or a hotdog. I realized quickly though that it wasn’t some bizarre nightmare because there was no way my subconscious had imagination enough to invent a reason for George Cubbins to call me.

“ _Listen Quill, I need a favour._ ” I repeated my action of staring at my phone, expecting something to happen. Then I stretched the chord, pulling the phone with me to look out of my kitchen window. No fire or brimstone, so it wasn’t the end of the world.

“Okay? What can I do for you, Cubbins?” I asked slowly.

He told me what he wanted, and it sounded like a horrible idea.

“And Tony doesn’t know? You’re sure that’s smart?”

“ _Lockwood can piss off_ ,” Cubbins cursed. I checked the window again just to be sure. Cubbins was notoriously loyal to Tony.

“ _Besides, I think there’s someone else who would be happy to see you_ ,” Cubbins continued.

My heart annoyingly skipped a beat.

I cleared my throat “Fine. But if Tony stabs me to death, I’m coming back to haunt you.”

I was waiting near the station where Cubbins had told me to go. Their deliveries had arrived before them. I signed for it and was standing there, guarding their stuff like an idiot.

I must have gotten lost in my own thoughts because I hadn’t noticed Tony until he was almost in my face.

“What are _you_ doing here?” He ground out.

The rest of the group came up behind him. He must have been _really_ pissed off to have run away from them.

I shrugged casually, “I’m waiting on your sorry lot.”

“ _Why_?” he hissed.

I raised an eyebrow at him condescendingly “Well, I was invited,”

Tony ripped around to look at Lucy, full of accusation. His long coat was flapping ridiculously around him.

Cubbins cleared his throat, “ _I_ asked him to come,” he informed.

“And I booked the tickets and the rooms” Munro provided as well, raising her hand a little. I had no idea she had been in on it as well and I started to wonder what this mutiny was all about.

Lucy for her part, looked shocked, but if it was because of Lockwood’s anger, the other’s underhandedness or my presence, I didn’t know.

Then I looked at the group more closely and my confusion grew steadily. Munro had a large bump on her forehead and was supporting most of her weight on her left leg, indicating that something was wrong with her right. She had a bandaged cut on one arm.

Cubbins looked worse. He had a large bruise on his cheekbone, a cut along his jawline, a small nick at the neck and a split lip.

Lucy’s eyes were red, her hand was bandaged in what seemed to be a kitchen towel and she had a tiny cut on her right cheek, but otherwise, she looked like the only injuries she had were the ones I already knew about.

“Tony, what the hell have you done to your team?” I blurted in horror.

He looked at me and then back at his team and did a double take as if he hadn’t noticed the state, they were in until now.

Lucy coughed uncomfortably and turned the colour of the beetroot smoothie I’d had for breakfast. “That would be my doing,” She admitted sheepishly, “hard training,”

I chuckled in disbelief, but it soon turned into full laughs, “If _that’s_ what you do for training,” I got out, pointing at Cubbins and Munro, “I’d _love_ to see what you can do when it’s serious,” I couldn’t stop grinning at her even if I tried.

She blushed even further but gave me a small smirk. She was breath-taking like that. A little shy maybe, but confident and proud at the same time. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

A cough brought me back to reality and I struggled to keep my own facial colour under control.

“Right, Cubbins, you had something to show me, yes?”

Cubbins looked at me and even though he was almost unreadable, that small quirk of his right eyebrow told me that he’d noticed my little zone-out. “Later,” was all he said. I wanted to punch that annoying face of his sometimes.

Tony must have realised that he’d been outmanoeuvred because he only stood with his arms crossed and scowled at the ground. Lucy put a hand on his shoulder, but he pulled away from her. The hurt look on her face made me want to punch Tony considerably more than I wanted to punch Cubbins which was saying something. I shook my head in disappointment.

Pearls before swine.

The train ride provided the most silent and tense atmosphere I had ever experienced since I told my parents I wanted to become an agent.

We had found a compartment and Munroe and Cubbins were quick to manoeuvre Lucy into a seat between them, leaving myself and Tony to sit next to each other awkwardly. We both tried to sit as far apart as possible. Lucy put her feet on the seat between us for which I was grateful as it provided us with a sort of barrier.

“Does anyone want to fill me in on what the case here is?” I tried to break the sliceable tension.

“A Creeping Shadow,” Tony informed with the most fake serious tone I’d ever heard.

“Seriously? That’s what you have to go on? That could be anything.”

“Also, Cold Maidens, Lurkers, a Shining Boy, Wraiths and Phantasms,” he continued.

“A cluster then.” I concluded, “They don’t have a local agency I take it?”

“Not all places do, you know.” Lucy pointed out.

“I know,” I rolled my eyes. “I _was_ Fittes Division Leader, even if it didn’t last too long, remember? I was working with Stanley Baker to see if we could make a traveling task force of sorts, for smaller towns and not just for the big outbreaks.” I scratched my neck a little “Ned was from a small town near Exeter. He had plans to leave and go home to start his own agency once he got his Fourth Grade. They didn’t have an agency either,” I drew in a deep breath and blew out my cheeks, “Wasn’t to be though. He was a month away from getting his qualifications when he died,”

I cleared my throat a little uncomfortably. “Anyway, Baker promised to continue working on getting the task force up and running, now that I’m... not there anymore,” I finished awkwardly, looking anywhere but the other occupants.

I looked up at Lucy when she nudged me gently with her boot. She smiled at me, “That sounds great Quill,”

I shrugged, “We'll see. It’s out of my hands now, but Baker is good,”

The silence that followed was a bit more relaxed. Lucy fell asleep with her head on Munro’s shoulder and I sat, staring out of the window. I was pulled out of my thoughts when someone cleared their throat.

Munro was sending me a pointed look and looked down with pursed lips.

I hadn’t even noticed it, but my right hand was absently playing with the laces of Lucy’s boot and caressing her leggings-clad calves the same way as I’d done when she had fallen asleep on my sofa.

Luckily, no one else (primarily Tony) had noticed. My face heated up and I withdrew my hand carefully, not to draw attention to it.

Munro sent me an obnoxiously knowing smile and I intuitively knew she had the potential to be just as bad and nosy as Kate. I groaned internally. Heaven help me if those two ever met.

Not long after, we reached our stop and we struggled to pull all our things with us and not forget anything on board. No one wanted to get caught in a cluster with no iron chains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it looks bad and I feel the need to point out that this is NOT going to turn into Lockwood-bashing fic.
> 
> The poor boy is suffering and I PROMISE to do right by him later on even if it's not in the way that you think.
> 
> Please leave a review or a kudo or something because I love it


	14. Sharing Is Caring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've arrived at Aldbury Castle.  
> Again, I know I'm not so nice to Lockwood, but I promise to do better in the future.

_Quill:_

It was a small town, but not the smallest I’d seen. Back when I'd still just been an agent, the team I was on, along with several others, had been sent to an area near Dover to deal with a large outbreak, not unlike the one in Chelsea. The place we had stayed at was barely more than three farms and an outhouse between them.

This was quaint, I supposed. It was certainly a beautiful area and the air somehow felt different compared to the city of London – especially in Clerkenwell where I lived near the Furnaces. Maybe it was time for a move now that I didn’t need to go there almost every night.

A small path led through a forest and we trudged onwards. Had it not been for our bags of equipment and supplies, it would even have been a pleasant walk, but a bag full of heavy iron chains digging into your shoulders could put a dampener on most good moods.

We reached a river from where we had a better overview of the village. It had a small green with horse chestnut trees in bloom and a large old-looking cross. The green was surrounded by small cottages and a church. There was even a small store and a slightly larger building with a dilapidated sign, identifying it as the Old Sun Inn.

”That’s where we’re going,” Tony pointed.

I nodded ”So the client is the owner?”

Cubbins snorted, ”maybe one day, when he’s a big boy. The client is a ten-year-old.”

This whole thing was getting more bizarre by the minute. I put a hand on Tony’s chest to stop him going further.

”What’s really going on, Tony? There’s no way in hell you’re coming here out of the goodness of your heart. You don’t do anything unless it benefits you whether it be a lot of money, a lot of publicity or some sort of thrill. There isn’t anything thrilling about Lurkers or Cold Maidens, I doubt a child has a lot of money to throw at you, especially when they live like that,” I pointed at the building for emphasis as it had a distinct feeling of neglect to it, “and publicity here is virtually non-existent. So why don’t you tell me the real reason we’re here? Have you even told your team?”

Tony’s jaw tightened in anger, but he kept his mouth shut

Then Munro gasped ”The Rotwell Institute,” her eyes widened in realisation ”That’s where you want to go, they have a facility nearby.”

”Rotwell?” I asked, not quite believing my own ears, “as in breaking and entering?”

Tony huffed “I was going to tell you at the inn. And it wasn’t going to be breaking and entering per se, we would just go and have a little look around,” he grumbled.

“Tony, that _is_ _breaking and entering_ , for crying out loud! I know that your team probably won’t back out because they’re almost as crazy as you are-“

this statement was countered by two “hey!”s and an “oi!”, but I think that deep down we all knew I was right,

“-but would it kill you to show your them a little trust? Now you conveniently eliminated any real option of backing out for them. These idiots-“

again two “hey!”s and an “oi!”,

“- will walk through fire for you. But for fuck’s sake, let them do it on their own terms!”

Tony snorted “And what about you? What will you walk through for me?”

“If you really need to ask, you’re stupider than I thought. And that’s saying something.”

I shook my head in exasperation and left him standing there, as I was heading towards the inn.

…

_Lucy:_

Was I disappointed? Maybe a bit.

Was I surprised? Not in the slightest.

Quill was right – I _would_ go through fire for Lockwood, and maybe that made me an idiot, but I knew that Lockwood would do the same for me and that made up for it, right?

I put a hand on Lockwood’s arm and gave him a reassuring smile.

Besides, I supposed I had gotten used to all the secrecy. Lockwood had never been the most forthcoming person. He always played his cards close to the vest and preferred revealing the entire plan with a dramatic flourish just before the shit hit the fan. It certainly kept things interesting, but it _did_ also keep things dangerous.

The village was a beautiful place with its quaint cottages and small winding streets. We had a good view of it from where we stood. Forest surrounded the area but opened up behind the church to hills of green grass flowing in the wind like waves on a lake.

We crossed the river over the small bridge and reached road leading to the inn.

“It’s almost too pretty to be haunted,” Holly remarked.

I almost let out a snort. Ghosts didn’t care about beauty.

“It might be pretty, but look at that,” I pointed to a large burnt circle on the side of the road. Pieces of debris were still smouldering in a pile. “This looks like it’s from last night or early this morning. They’ve been burning something,”

“Or some _one_ ,” Quill added. I shoved his shoulder and he grinned at me.

George kneeled next to it and studied the pile “Well, I don’t see anything that looks human. They might have been burning things they suspect are sources,”

I rolled my eyes “No kidding. People tend to panic-burn when they don’t have an agency.”

“Look there,” Lockwood pointed at something between the chestnut trees.

“Must be that old cross the boy mentioned,” Holly pointed out.

I hadn’t been there when they met the client, so I didn’t know its significance, “what cross?”

“Skinner mentioned an old cross that depicted a Creeping Shadow raising the dead in its wake, somehow predicting the issue here.” Lockwood provided.

George was already walking towards it “I want to get a closer look,” he called over his shoulder.

He led the way and the rest of us followed through the grass which was still wet with dew and glittering in the sunlight.

As we walked, our boots became soaked and I could feel my leggings becoming damp as well. I looked over my shoulder and saw that we were leaving dark trails in our wake as we disturbed the wet grass.

By the time I reached the cross, George was already studying whatever had been etched into the stone. Quill came to a stand so close to me that I could smell the now familiar scent coming off him.

“There he is,” Lockwood pointed, “our Creeping Shadow.”

George ran his fingers over the stone, “I was at the Archives yesterday and I found a reference to it. It’s supposed to be a depiction of Judgement Day. That there,” he pointed at the large figure Lockwood had pointed out as the Creeping Shadow, “is supposed to be an angel, taking the souls with it to Heaven. It was a common theme around the country. Many villages have the same sort standing around.”

“And what are the odds that we're dealing with Judgement Day?” Holly asked rhetorically.

Quill snorted next to me, “Let’s call it slim to none.”

“Oi!” a voice yelled at us from afar. We looked around and saw the client swinging on a wooden gate that was hanging precariously from two loose looking hinges attached to a fence that surrounded the Old Sun Inn.

As we got closer, I saw that our supposed client was nothing more that a slip of a boy with protruding features which gave him the look of an ugly baby bird or maybe a mouse.

“Took you long enough!” he yelled at us, “the Shadow walked again last night along with the dead and you lot missed it!” he sounded impatient as if he had expected that we hadn’t had anything better to do. I supposed that they could have come sooner if I hadn’t been injured, but after the previous revelation, I wondered if Lockwood would even have come at all, if not for his hidden agenda. That thought made me slightly uncomfortable even if our client did seem rather annoying at the first impression.

...

_Quill:_

The inside of the Inn was much like the outside. Run-down like someone had stopped caring a long time ago, but only trudged on due to obligation.

“You want some lemonade?” the little goblin of a boy asked.

Tony shrugged, “maybe after we see our rooms. We need to set these down” he nudged the bags which we had put down on the flagstone floor.

“You want rooms? But won’t you be out fighting Visitors all night? There’re certainly enough of them.”

“Even if we were out all night, we would still need to sleep _sometime_ ,” Lucy pointed out impatiently

The creature shrugged indifferently “I’ll go ask Pops,” he bounded off like a squirrel on its fourth espresso.

“Am I the only one who –“

“No, the rest of us feel like punching him too.” Tony finished.

I snorted “At least we agree on something then,” I smirked a little

“I’ll hold him down” he offered with a grin.

“Deal”

The boy returned not long after and while we didn’t make good on our agreement, my hands were tickling more by the minute.

He came carrying two keys as if he had brought some sort of grand prize. “I got your keys.”

“That’s lovely, but why are there only two of them?” Munro asked.

The little nuisance shrugged “We only have the two rooms available.”

“No, no, no – I booked for _five_ of us,” she pointed out a pit frantically.

We looked around at each other as the implications started setting in. Well, some scenarios were more horrific than others.

“There _are_ five beds, well four, one’s a double. This room,” he held up one key, “has two singles, and this one,” he held up the other, “has the double and then a camp bed at the end. There’s a storeroom as well that could be used for sleeping in, but the ghost is in the way of that.”

Munro, fast as a bloody cobra, snatched the key for the room with two singles “Come on, Lucy,” she grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her towards the stairs, “Good luck deciding who gets the camp bed, boys,” she called sardonically over her shoulder.

Delightful my foot.

…

_Lucy:_

The room was nicer than I’d thought it would be. It was light and airy. The window, which gave a beautiful view over the green, was open just a crack to let in some of the crisp spring air and there was a vase full of fresh lavender on the sill. The fresh air and chimes and jangles of iron charms from outside reminded me of home.

We put down our bags with heavy thuds and I threw myself onto the nearest bed. I awkwardly pulled off my boots and threw them on the floor at random. My ankle was throbbing slightly from our walk here and I knew I ought to rest it before whatever events the night would bring.

“You know you can tell me anything, right, Lucy?” Holly told me as she picked up my boots and set them neatly down near the door. She sat down next to me on the bed as if she were a mother caring for a sick child. At least that’s how I imagined it would be. My own mother had never actually done that.

I huffed a little laugh “Like what, Holly?”

She shrugged “You know, things. Fears, dreams,” she gave me a small smirk, “boys…” she trailed off and grinned at me.

I know I blushed, and I hated that I did. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hurried out.

Holly snorted inelegantly, “Of course you don’t,” she mumbled, almost to herself.

“But I will tell you that I’m thankful,” I told her honestly, “You’ve helped me so much recently, I don’t know how I can ever repay you,”

She gave me an incredulous and somewhat pitying look that made me deeply uncomfortable.

“You really don’t know how to do this, do you?” she gathered.

I didn’t get it “Do what?” I asked, perhaps a bit waspishly.

“This whole caring-thing,” she shook her head.

“I care!” I protested.

She chuckled a little “Of course you care. I know you do. But you don’t know how to be cared _for_ ,”

I rolled my eyes “I didn’t know that was a required skill.” I snarked and shifted a little. I felt more and more ill at ease with this conversation.

She raised her hands placatingly “Just know that I’m here for you. And you don’t owe me anything.”

“We should probably get down to the boys,” I sat up, putting an end to this touchy-feely stuff, “We need to get a better idea of what’s going on here and then set up our stuff.”

Holly shook her head at me, and we got up. Before we reached the door, I grabbed her arm,

“Thank you, Holly.” I tried to pour my gratitude into the look I gave her and the way I squeezed her arm.

She gave me a little smile “Anytime, Lucy.”

…

_Quill:_

It had been quite an argument in which I was _by far_ the greatest loser. I was wallowing when the girls joined us.

“I did _not_ sign up for this,” I grumbled.

“I take it Lockwood won the camp bed?” Lucy concluded as she and Munro entered the bar.

Tony looked far too smug “Leaders’ prerogative,”

“I’d rather face a hundred Raw-bones than wake up next to you, Cubbins,” I moaned and got an idea, “I don’t suppose you’d want to trade places with Lucy?” I grinned wickedly.

“No!” three panicked voices exclaimed. I was more than pleased when I noticed that Lucy _had not_ been one of them. She only looked at me incredulously with a slightly pink tone to her cheeks.

I knew there was no hope for anything between us. She was in love with Tony after all, but it was nice to know that she wasn’t _completely_ horrified by the idea.

Tony looked at me with narrowed eyes and was no doubt about to tell me off, when the goblin arrived with his father, carrying lemonade for all of us.

Together they gave us a summary of the ghost activity and it was quite something. There were dozens of ghosts and that was just at the centre around the green. When they’d given us the information, they left us to strategize.

“We need to split up,” Munro suggested, “Otherwise we’ll be staying here for _weeks_ ,”

I shuddered at the thought of sharing a bed with Cubbins for an extended period of time.

“In that case, I suggest that one team will stay here and take care of the Shining Boy here at the inn. That will make it easier for us to come and go as we please and give either Kipps or George the option of sleeping in that storeroom off the hall,” Tony suggested.

“Right you are, Lockwood,” Cubbins took over. “I suggest that Kipps stays here close to the inn because he’s blind as a mole and Lucy should stay here too. That way she can rest her leg. I can stay with them,” he offered.

Tony looked like he was about to object, but thought better of it. It was a compelling argument Cubbins had made and it almost sounded rehearsed so I wondered what he was playing at.

“No offense Kipps, but you’re absolutely useless here,” Tony started instead and I wondered how that wasn’t offensive, even though he had a point. “Why did you even invite him, George?”

Cubbins shrugged, “safety in numbers et cetera. Besides, I have some experiments I’d like to conduct,” he rubbed his hands together, truly looking like a mad scientist and I started to wonder if I might have made a mistake in coming along.

Tony grinned at me, obviously expecting me to go through quite the ordeal.

“Right!” he clapped his hands together, obviously in a better mood, “we have some hours to kill before we need to get started, so try to rest, recharge a little and make sure you have everything you need. We’ll meet here again at half past four to get set up, so that gives us,” he looked at his watch, “just about three hours. Use them well.”

With that, we went our separate ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this one's a bit of a filler. I love some good Lucy/Holly bonding.  
> The next chapter is going to be full of ouchies, so brace yourselves.
> 
> Please leave a comment to let me know what you think.


	15. What Is, What Was, And What Could Have Been

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is important. And it hurts.  
> Sorry/not sorry

_Quill:_

I chose to spend the time we had, exploring the town. We might have plans for tonight, but considering the sheer number of ghosts there were, it was a good idea to get the lay of the land in case we had time to take on an extra ghost or too.

That, and it was a beautiful little place so I might as well enjoy the nature and the good weather. I threw a few things in my rucksack and made my way outside. The contrast between the fresh air, sunlight and nature of this place, compared to the grey streets of London was so great that it felt as if I had stepped into another world.

I walked down the small street along the green, getting a good look at the places the innkeeper had pointed out to us. He had also told us about several other locations with Visitors around the town that hadn’t been visible from the inn and I wanted to check them out.

A lot of the buildings were derelict, and I wondered how many of the houses were empty because their inhabitants had died from ghost-touch. It was depressing, really, but nothing new. The Problem had taken a lot of lives and ruined a good lot more, I thought to myself.

I ended up back at the inn and went up the lane past the church where a man was supposed to have jumped to his death from the tower. I considered what the Source might be. It could give us some issues if it was too large which I’d seen before, or if it was somewhere in the tower. We would probably need to discuss this in the group and make a plan, especially since the graveyard was just at the foot of the structure.

The lane led into the woods and turned into more of a path, where the crowns of gnarled oak trees met above my head. I followed the path uphill where the forest ended abruptly, and instead turned into a grassy hill. I didn’t go all the way up, but turned right instead, following another pathway. I passed trees and bushes, all with light green buds that almost made the forest glow. It was as if the entire place was holding its breath, waiting for a sign to burst out in colour.

The ground was covered in dry leaves from the autumn and winter and they rustled underneath my boots. They probably weren’t the best boots for this sort of walk, but now I had committed to it. I’d just have to clean them later. Here and there, spring flowers had broken through the leaves and dotted the forest floor in small bursts of white, yellow and purple.

It wasn’t long before I came upon a small clearing. The sun had created a dry patch and I decided to sit down and relax a little. I sat for a while, enjoying the fresh air and drinking in the sunlight before unpacking my bag of polish, cloths and biscuits.

I unfastened my rapier from my belt and got to work. I had rituals to do before the night started.

I hadn’t gotten far with my maintenance when I heard the crunching sound of leaves under heavy boots.

...

_Lucy:_

“I thought I saw you heading this way,” I said as a greeting.

Quill turned and looked up at me over his shoulder, “and so you decided to follow me, is that it?” he grinned cheekily at me and I blushed a little at being called out.

I gave him a small smile and a shrug in return trying to play it cool and probably failing miserably, “maybe,”

“Join me?” He offered and patted the spot next to him.

I took off my new coat and spread it on the ground like a picnic blanket before sitting on it. It was a nice padded parka I’d found. It was cheap and it was warm. I couldn’t really ask for more.

“What're you doing?” It was obvious what he was doing, I wasn’t an idiot, but I needed a way to start a conversation.

He shrugged “Just stuff. Preparing for tonight. What do you think of this place?” he threw his head backwards towards the village.

“I don’t know. It’s like something is hanging in the air,” I sighed heavily, “Other than that, it’s a wee bit smaller, but it sort of reminds me of home.”

He paused his polishing, “tell me about it,” he prompted,

“About where I’m from?”

He only nodded and returned to his work.

I hesitated a little. It wasn’t the most exciting of places, but eventually I started telling him about it. I told him about the meadows and the river, the small winding streets. I told him about some of the first cases I'd been on.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about my family. Or about Wythburn Mill. I did trust him, but I didn’t want his pity. He clearly noticed I was holding something back, but he didn’t press. For that I was grateful. Maybe I would tell him someday, but not yet.

He nodded along giving small smiles here and there. Laughing about some of the embarrassing mistakes I had made at the beginning of my career and provided some of his own stories.

Eventually, the conversation took another turn.

“How are things with Tony then?” Quill asked while studying the rapier.

I sighed heavily, not knowing where to start entirely.

“I don’t know. It’s complicated. One moment he wants me there and at other times he’s avoiding me. I think he’s still having trouble with the relic-market and what happened there.”

Quill nodded, “that’s understandable. It was a reckless move he made but I don’t think he had imagined the consequences would be so severe. He isn’t the type to endanger people’s lives on purpose. It just sort of happens as a consequence sometimes even if it’s unintentional on his part. He doesn’t think things through, but he’s not a bad person.”

“I don’t think so either. And he’s having trouble with me being hurt… and you saving me,” I looked at him sideways to observe his reaction.

He snorted a little, “He’s jealous,” he remarked.

I found myself smiling a little. “He said that he thought that you were taking me away from him.”

Quill frowned, and halted his polishing to look at me, “Well, I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do so by definition, I can’t take you anywhere... you know... unless you want me to.” He smirked a little and winked at me.

“Damn straight,”

“-but there’s a reason he reacts the way he does.” He bit his lip before continuing. “I might have a hand in that in a way.”

He went back to polishing the rapier a bit more violently and instead of pressing, I asked something else I’d been wondering about for some time.

“Why is it that you always insist on calling him Tony? You know he hates it,”

Quill huffed a small laugh, but it wasn’t a happy one. It had a bitter tinge to it. “I can’t _not_ call him Tony because he’s always been Tony to me. Jess' annoying baby brother Tony.” He smiled a small smile.

“You knew Jessica?” I asked. It was the first I had heard of that connection, but I wasn’t surprised not to know. Lockwood was never very willing to talk about his past or the people in it.

Quill nodded slowly. “We were friends,” he started quietly. “Actually, we were all friends. You know Tony’s parents were researchers, yeah? My parents have a publishing company in Mayfair. Tony’s parents used to have some of their papers published through us. As a side note, that’s actually the reason they named me ‘Quill'.”

He looked at me with pink cheeks and huffed a small laugh. “Something about the pen being mightier than the sword. Look how that turned out.” He gave me a rueful smile and waved his rapier around a little in demonstration and I grinned at him.

“At least Don and Celia had the good sense to name their children something normal,” he rolled his eyes, “Anyway. Tony doesn’t like me calling him that, because he doesn’t like the reminder of how things were before. I know there’s a lot of pain involved, but he will always be Tony to me.”

I felt myself frown a little “If you were friends, then what happened? Why do you hate each other?”

…

_Quill:_

I scoffed. “I don’t hate him. He’s an annoying little shit and I love to tease him, but I don’t hate him. He rightly hates me, though” I sighed heavily and rubbed my neck.

She frowned, “But why?”

In reality, I was probably a hypocrite, calling out Tony and accusing him of not wanting to be reminded, because I didn’t like to talk about these things either. No one probably did, but sometimes it was necessary. And this was something I owed both Lucy and Tony. She would need to know in order to understand, but Tony was obviously unable to tell her.

“I was supposed to have been there that night.” I told her. My voice sounded very small, I realised, and I cleared my throat.

Lucy looked at me with those big eyes of hers, “The night that Jessica…” she trailed off, not able to say those words.

“The night that Jessica died, yeah.” I put down the rapier and stared at my hands. I couldn’t handle the way she looked at me. “After Don and Celia passed away it was just Jess and Tony. The authorities weren’t happy about letting them stay alone there at Portland Row and my mum wasn’t either, but they let them. Jess insisted that they should stay at their home and so we would try to support them in other ways,” I chuckled, and it might have sounded a bit wet,

I heard Lucy shifting, but she didn’t speak.

“Jess was always so bloody stubborn and proud. She wouldn’t allow us to help them outright, so my mum would sneak food into their kitchen. Or even steal their laundry to wash it and then sneak it in, and we would all pretend it didn’t happen.”

I smiled a little, remembering how Jess had once caught me with their laundry. I had just revealed her underwear in the basket when she walked in. We didn’t speak for a week and couldn’t look each other in the eyes for another fortnight.

I sighed, “I was supposed to be there that night, helping out. We needed to sort some of the things Don and Celia had sent from their last trip before they died, and I was supposed to help clearing out potential Sources. Jess didn’t have any Talent so she wouldn’t be able to see if there was anything dangerous there or hear things like you,”

I cast a quick sideways glance at her and cleared my throat again because it felt rather constricted, “Tony could, of course, but he was too small and if he was the one to do it, it was better to have one more person there to handle him.” I smiled involuntarily when I remembered how Tony had been. He was impulsive now, but back then he’d been a right menace with the attention span of a goldfish.

“I was supposed to do it, but I was already working with Fittes at that time. I was offered to go out on a rather prestigious case, and I took it,” I breathed a heavy sigh, “I figured that Jess could manage with Tony. It would be a good exercise for him, and Tony was good already then. I thought they could do it without me and then my mum could go for support.”

“But she didn’t, did she?”

I shook my head. That was probably the worst of it, “I’d forgotten to tell my mum about the change of plans,” I looked down, ashamed.

“Oh, Quill,” Lucy breathed.

I didn’t dare to look at her because no matter if she was looking at me with anger or pity, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. My eyes felt warm and I could feel tears gathering. I wasn’t one to cry often, but this one thing never failed to make me do so. Big fat tears of shame.

I held my breath and tried to get a hold of myself. To try to drive the tears away and for several moments, the only sound was cheerful birdsong which was a huge contrast to the serious topic we were discussing.

“I uh – it wasn’t very late that I was done with the case, so I went there. To Portland Row I mean,” I sniffled, still trying to keep the tears at bay.

Lucy drew in a sharp breath, obviously understanding where the story was headed.

I nodded, “When I found them, Jessica was already gone. The death-glow was the brightest thing I’ve ever seen. I almost couldn’t see Tony he – he was holding her. God, I don’t even know how long he’d been sitting there with her.” I wiped my eyes angrily with my shirt. I was pissed off with myself that I couldn’t keep it together.

She put a hand on my back and I almost broke completely, but now I needed to go through with this.

“Anyway. The authorities wouldn’t let Tony stay alone at the house. He couldn’t exactly take care of himself. He was just a small boy. They would barely let him, and Jess stay there by themselves. So, my parents tried to gain custody of him,”

“They did?”

I sniffled, “Yeah, to try to keep him in familiar surroundings or something like that. Unfortunately, Don and Celia hadn’t made a will.” I shook my head still in slight disbelief.

Since the Problem started, wills had become a staple in most people’s lives. Not having a will was almost unheard of _especially_ when having children. Hell, _I’d_ had a will since I was ten. “Instead he went to the nearest blood relative who I believe was an uncle near Bath.”

We sat for a while in silence and Lucy leaned against me and put her head on my shoulder.

“Tony didn’t want to go with his uncle, and he was furious. With me first and foremost of course and with my parents. He accused them of not trying hard enough and not caring. Said that they were only happy to be rid of him and Jess.” I sighed.

“My mum was devastated. They tried several times after, but he wrote a letter after a couple of years, telling them to stop. That he was happy with his uncle and didn’t want to see any of us ever again. It nearly broke my mum, and I was so angry with him for that. I let go of it though. He was just a little boy after all. And now we’ve grown up, I guess.”

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” she murmured in my ear.

I turned my head and kissed her hair. I was full of appreciation for her and I wanted so bad to tell her what my heart was full of, but I couldn’t do it. Not when I knew she was in love with Tony and especially not when I suspected he reciprocated.

“The next time I saw him was at a rapier tournament of all places. And he beat me too, that little shit.” I snorted and leaned back on my elbows. I offered Lucy a biscuit from the pack I’d brought.

She grinned down at me “He did mention something about that. He seems particularly fond of the way it ended.”

I felt myself blushing. “Of course, he told you _that_. No one ever seems to forget. Apparently not even people who weren’t even present for the event.” I poked her a little in the ribs and she jumped with small squeal that made me smile.

She poked me back but looked slightly disappointed when I barely reacted. She flopped down and laid down on her back next to me. She smiled widely when I looked down at her. God, she was beautiful.

...

_Lucy:_

Quill looked at me funnily. He twisted around so he rested on one elbow rather than both.

He looked at my mouth and bit his own lower lip, giving me a flashback to the second kiss he'd given me that morning we had spent together. For a moment I thought he was going to kiss me again and I felt butterflies erupt in my stomach. Heat spread in my body, but I was left cold when he turned his head away.

He cleared his throat, “Tony’s problem is that he’s afraid of letting people in because he’s afraid of losing them. He’s lost so much already and I’m to blame for some of that,” Quill turned his head again and looked at me sadly.

“It’s something you should seriously consider before you start anything with him. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. His heart is in the right place.”

He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair, “if he’s really what makes you happy then by all means, go ahead. But remember that you’re not responsible for his pain. Now you know that that’s on me. And no matter what, you aren’t obligated to fix him. You need to take care of yourself first – promise me that.” He looked at me seriously, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

I swallowed hard, “I’ll try my best.”

“You need to remember that when things go bad – and they _will_ be bad sometimes because life has ups and downs, Tony is going to run. Not literally but he’ll become distant, shut you out or try to push you away. You have to consider if you’re willing to play catch-up forever.”

He paused and fidgeted a little. He looked at me seriously and I could tell that he was debating with himself whether to continue or not.

“If Tony _really_ makes you happy,” he started slowly and looked down at his hands that were stained with silver polish.

He swallowed hard, “If he makes you happy, then go for it. But make sure that he’s willing to give you everything first. No secrets, no omissions. He needs to respect you as his equal, not treat you like an employee,” he looked away.

I bit my lip. Would Lockwood do that for me? For some reason I had a hard time imagining him opening up to me entirely. To anyone for that matter.

“Well, this is cosy!” A loud voice sounded from behind us. I hadn’t noticed George approaching us and I wondered how much he’d heard of our conversation. He must have been sneaking because I hadn’t heard the leaves.

I smiled at him. “It is. Would you like to join us?”

George looked at me like he had been offered something to eat from the Ealing Cannibal’s house.

“No thank you, Lucy. I think I’d rather lick the inside of my own underpants. And you know how they look.” He replied casually.

Quill and I both shuddered. Me with trauma and him with dread.

“You should come back to the inn. We’re gathering soon."

I looked at my watch and was surprised to see that it was four already. I stood up and looked at the other two to find George staring at Quill with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

Quill was putting his stuff back in his rucksack, but I could see on his tense shoulders that he was aware that he was under scrutiny. He was probably worried about whatever experiment George had in mind. George certainly looked like he was contemplating something. Maybe the measurements for Quill’s coffin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have plans for the Kipps-Lockwood connection, so I thought - How can I take this situation and make it more painful?  
> Then I threw a fucking cactus in there.
> 
> What are your thoughts on the little revelation? Leave a comment and let me know. I'm really curious!


	16. What The Heart Is Full Of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever been so full of an emotion that your body simply can't contain it?

Even if we’d done the whole routine a hundred times, there was always a certain sort of tension to be felt before a case was about to begin. It ran through the entire group almost like an electrical current. Well, except for George. He had to be a rubbish conduit. He was upstairs, but I knew his expressions or lack thereof well.

I felt the bubbling nerves in my stomach. Holly looked like she was about to be ill and Lockwood?

Lockwood always looked excited, but not more than usual now. I guessed that he didn’t plan to do the side-mission tonight. When Quill and I came in together, his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

I looked at Quill and his loftily raised eyebrow and felt my hopes of a peaceful, relaxed meeting slip away. The odds that those two could pack their egos away for more than a few seconds were minuscule.

“So – are we going to do this or what?” Lockwood asked.

George came down, slightly out of breath. He brought two rolled up pieces of paper with him.

“I’ve made maps! Or I got a copy of a map from the library and had to make a copy of that, so we have one for each group. I put the sightings on there with red marker.”

Lockwood and I each snatched one.

“This is brilliant, George!” I beamed at him

George scoffed “I should bloody well hope so! I worked on that all afternoon, I did, while you lot were having picnics and whatnot,” he grumbled.

I snorted, “You say that as if you didn’t enjoy making these.”

“That’s not the point Lucy – the point is that I was _working_ while _you_ were-“

“Right, George, that’s enough,” Lockwood cut him off with a look, “brilliant work as usual of course, but we should get a move on before sundown.”

We all nodded. The sun was already low in the sky and if we waited too long, we would all be trapped inside the inn, which wasn’t part of the plan.

“As we discussed earlier, you, Kipps and Lucy will stay here to deal with the Shining Boy. When you’ve finished, I suggest you could put a candle in the windowsill to let us know that it’s safe and if you have the possibility and the energy for it, you can come to find Holly and me. But it’s _completely optional_.” He looked at me, George and even Quill in turn.

Quill smiled at Lockwood and nodded in approval. Lockwood looked almost taken aback but managed a small smile in return.

After all that Quill had told me, I truly hoped that they would find some way to reconcile. I just feared that I might be standing in the way of that and I didn’t know what to do or how to feel about it.

“Holly and I will start out with the Visitor at the church. The fellow who took a swan dive.”

Quill snorted, “I know you’re a one-man army et cetera, but do you honestly expect you two will be able to cover that large an area with a _graveyard_ right behind you? How many Visitors can you hold off d’you reckon?”

Lockwood scowled at him and was obviously about to tell him off, but Quill sighed and raised his hands in a placating manner,

“Look, Tony. I know that you’re good, I’m not challenging that, but maybe it would be better to wait with the church until you have a full team. I had a look there earlier and it’s _a lot_ of ground to cover for only two people and don’t forget you have the graveyard, at the foot of the tower. You don’t know what’s going to come out of there.”

He looked carefully at Lockwood, who frowned slightly. I knew that he didn’t like people disagreeing with his plans. And he _especially_ didn’t like anyone telling him what to do in general.

“I’m not going to prevent you from doing it, obviously, but maybe you could consider taking these,” Quill continued and pointed at a few dots along the green, “and then when the Shining Boy is done for, you could take the church with some back-up? Not from me, obviously. I’m useless as you’ve made so abundantly clear.”

There was a charged silence. Lockwood chewed the inside of his cheek, considering his options.

“What do you think Holly? I'll leave it up to you,” he ended up deciding

Holly hesitated. “I think that Kipps makes sense. We could probably take the spirit, but I’m worried about the graveyard. We don’t know what else might come from there. We would be awfully exposed if we only had one person to look for the Source and one to defend.”

Lockwood nodded thoughtfully.

“Alright, then that’s what we'll do, but instead of those spirits outdoors, I think we should take a couple of these,” he pointed to some houses on the map, “they’re in people’s homes, so that should be the priority.”

Quill nodded, “Good call,”

Lockwood snapped up to look at Quill with narrowed eyes and almost looked like he was going to argue just for the sake of it, but thankfully he let it go.

…

_Quill:_

Honestly, I hadn’t expected Tony to take my advice. For him it was all rapiers out and flares bursting, preferably as dramatic as possible with his cape-like monstrosity of a coat flapping in the wind. Not careful strategizing a safe disposal with minimal risk.

I knew I didn’t have any Talent left, and in some ways that _did_ make me somewhat useless. What I did have though, was years more field experience.

I had seen a lot of people fail and die, but none more than the impulsive gung-ho adrenaline-junkies who would run in without any sort of strategy and only rely on speed, skill and luck.

That was the exact substance Tony was made of and Lucy somewhat too.

It was a testament to their skill levels that they were even still alive.

A fact that made me feel rather uncomfortable, because skills fail, and luck is unreliable.

We ate dinner early so Tony and Munro could leave before dark. The food was some form of goop that no one would tell me what was. I didn’t eat much. Instead I left the table and busied myself with checking Tony and Munro's packs. They couldn’t be missing anything because once they were out, there would be no way back in until dawn broke or until we took care of the Shining Boy.

I put a bit more salt, iron filings and flares in there just to give them something for backup.

When they got ready to head out, I also handed Tony a bag with an extra thermos, some more biscuits and a blanket.

He looked in the bag and rolled his eyes at me in an exaggerated fashion that truly suited his age.

The fact that I wanted to smack the back of his head and call him an ungrateful brat made me feel old.

Well, old _er_

“Tony,” I called just before he was about to close the door behind him

He looked at me in question with the eyes that looked so like his sister’s,

I heaved a heavy sigh. “Just be careful, yeah?”

He frowned a bit, but I couldn’t determine if it were in anger, confusion or something else.

He rolled his eyes again and huffed impatiently but gave a single decisive nod all the same. That was probably all I could ask for.

I shook my head, more in fondness than irritation this time, and went to join Lucy and Cubbins in the bar.

The inn’s other inhabitants had retired for the evening and let us have free use of all the downstairs facilities.

Well, whatever facilities were available.

Well. There was a stove and a kettle and that was the most important thing.

We’d put out a large circle with thick chains in the middle of the hall.

The early evening was mostly spent hanging about and taking temperature readings every so often. None of us spoke much. Cubbins was near the stairs, tinkering with that device he’d gotten from Rotwell’s with the little silver bell. Lucy giving him dark looks and scoffing whenever he made a sound. She was sitting in a chair near the door with a sketchpad, but she wouldn’t show me what she was drawing.

My mother had shoved seven manuscripts from her ‘maybe’- pile into my arms before I left. She wanted me to read through them and give her feedback on whether or not to go with them. It could be a painful process and I’d already discarded two because the plot was either overused or so cringeworthy that I felt like creating a bonfire.

_“Martha felt the Visitor send her a wind that spoke of longing, caressing her cheek. It sent a thrill down her spine that settled in her-“_

Eew.

I grimaced. That one went in a separate ‘Hell no’-category I’d made. Publish that and we’d have a whole generation of housewives hospitalised from ghost-touch and frostbite in weird places.

I felt a chill that wasn’t related to bad writing and glanced at my thermometer.

“Guys I’ve got twelve degrees over here”

Cubbins took a bored look at his own. “Same”

Lucy shuddered. “I’ve got six and falling.”

“Well, get in the circle then, you twit,” I scolded her when she stayed sitting where she was, even though Cubbins and I had gotten in place

She stuck out her tongue at me but joined us after turning off the lamp.

Not long after, Lucy stiffened next to me and tilted her head.

“Hear that?” She asked.

“Yes.” Cubbins whispered.

I snorted. Didn’t feel like the question deserved any other response from me. I felt Lucy’s warm hand squeeze my own a little. That made me feel better.

“Do we answer it?” She asked rhetorically.

Cubbins only shook his head.

A cold burst of air ran across the room taking my mind involuntarily back to Martha’s misadventure. I shuddered in revulsion.

“What about now?”

Cubbins shook his head again.

Then both Lucy and Cubbins jerked back. “Blimey, someone really wants to come inside,” Cubbins remarked.

Lucy cleared her throat, “I’m opening the door,” she warned and pulled the cord attached to the latch.

Predictably I didn’t see anything, but from the others’ puzzlement, I gathered that they didn’t either.

“Where –“ Lucy started, but Cubbins cut her off.

“Of course. It’s already inside.”

I heard twin intakes of breath and sighed.

“Well, I can’t see it of course,”

Cubbins gave me a sly look, “Would you like to?” He asked, in the same tone a suspicious middle-aged man might offer children candy.

I gave him a deadpan look. “What, you want to kill me so I can join it or what is it?”

He held out a strange contraption in front of my face.

I lifted an eyebrow at him, “No offence Cubbins, but this is a really odd time to invite me to go snorkelling.”

“No, you dolt. They aren’t for diving. Just put them on.”

I gave him a sceptical look and then looked at Lucy, who only stared from me to the goggles and back in obvious curiosity.

In the end curiosity won out for me too.

“Wait, Cubbins, what do _you_ see when you put them on?”

He shrugged “Nothing more than usual, but I don’t think they’re for me. I think they’re meant for the frail and elderly like you,”

I sighed and considered it. What did I have to lose?

And so, I pulled them down over my eyes.

I jerked back when I saw the ghost.

“Shit!”

I _saw it!_

It was a Shining Boy alright. Thin and frail looking but shining with a powerful blueish other-light.

And bloody hell – I _saw it!_

I could _See_

I ripped the glasses off and the ghost disappeared. I held them loosely in front of my face and saw the ghost through the lenses.

I’m sure I looked like an idiot, but at that moment I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“I can _See_ ,” I whispered in complete disbelief. I chuckled a bit hysterically and looked at the other two with a smile so big it hurt my cheeks.

Cubbins only nodded like he’d expected that outcome and snatched the glasses out of my hands to look closer at them.

Lucy stared at me with a look of complete astonishment.

All the fear and cold that the Visitor had brought with it was dispelled with the happiness I felt. My chuckle turned into a full laugh and I grabbed her by the waist, twirling her around in the air inside the iron circle.

She squealed and broke into her own delighted laugh. With the way she smiled at me with her sparkling eyes and red cheeks, I couldn’t help myself.

I was so full of joy that I couldn’t contain it and couldn’t put it into words.

I kissed her instead.

Her eyes widened in surprise but fluttered closed not a moment later. So, did mine, as I lost myself in the kiss and my own euphoria.

One of my arms wound around her, keeping her close to me and the other went to the back of her head tangling in her hair.

She sighed into the kiss and that’s when the world came rushing back to me. I let her go and put my hands on her shoulders and ended the kiss.

“I—I'm _so_ sorry, Lucy,” I looked at her wide-eyed, half expecting a slap, but she just grinned me, perhaps a bit dazed.

I remembered Cubbins and turned towards him with the intention of explaining myself “I uh— I'm—I just.”

Eloquent Quill, really eloquent, I scolded myself and rubbed my neck.

Cubbins only looked bored out of his mind.

“Try to kiss me and I’ll punch you in the nuts.” He warned me, deadpan.

“Now, if you two are _quite_ finished, we _do_ have a ghost to take care of, you know.” He gave us both a pointed look before returning to his task

I bit my lip and risked a look at Lucy, still fearing her reaction. I caught her eye, but rather than looking angry or scandalised, she gave me a small, shy smile and her cheeks turned bright pink.

Cubbins was right though. Even if Lucy hadn’t done it, I symbolically gave myself a little slap on the cheek. I needed to get my head in the game.

I took the goggles back from Cubbins and slipped them over my face. From there, things went surprisingly smoothly.

Ghost-hunting was apparently almost like riding a bicycle. I wasn’t completely out of practice of course. Unlike most supervisors, I'd still gone on cases with my team, but it was something _quite_ different when you could see what was going on. The apparition went on in a loop. The Shining Boy relived his death over and over again, and when we approached it with rapiers, it darted towards a place near the kitchen door.

“I’ll find the Source, you handle the ghost,” Cubbins offered and got to his knees with a crowbar,

“God Cubbins, that cleavage you have on your backside is so big I could put dinnerplates down there. Pull up your trousers for heaven’s sake!” I shuddered

“Just keep talking, Kipps,” Cubbins panted with exertion, his voice mingled with the grinding of the stones he was prying loose, “I gave you those goggles, I can easily take them away.”

I cleared my throat “I don’t respond to blackmail,” I bluffed.

“Quill!” Lucy yelled in warning.

The boy had managed to sneak up on my left side, while I had been disturbingly distracted by Cubbins’ hindquarters.

My rapier moved almost by itself in a flawless ward-knot, dispelling the ghost and I was embarrassingly close to punching the air in victory. I still had it.

Cubbins managed to uncover the source surprisingly fast.

An awfully small skeleton that had been hidden underneath the flagstones.

I always hated when it was children. It always made me want to punish someone, but as Cubbins estimated it to be from the eighteenth century, I was more than a couple of decades too late.

He collected the bones with a little more care than he would normally treat a source. I didn’t judge.

“How far do you think they got?” I asked, nodding to the outside. Lucy was in the process of setting up the candle to show the other two that it was safe to come inside.

I looked out of the window and to my astonishment, I saw even more Visitors outside.

She bumped my shoulder with her own and gave me an amused smile. “Do you want to find out?” She teased, her tone a lot like the one Cubbins had used, but a lot less menacing.

I nodded, too giddy to say anything that wouldn’t sound ridiculous.

Lucy grabbed my arm and pulled me to the door

“You coming, George?” she called over her shoulder as we crossed the threshold out into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know what you think?


	17. The Creeping Shadow

_Quill:_

There was a continuous current of excitement running through me as we walked along the green in the direction that Tony and Munro were supposed to be in. It was still early enough in the spring that frost made the grass glitter in the moonlight and our breaths made small clouds of fog.

I had taken the goggles off and were studying them, relying on Lucy or Cubbins to warn me if something came too close.

“What are these even, Cubbins? Where did you get them?”

“Nicked them,” he shrugged. “I figure the secret’s in the lenses. They’re made of crystal rather than glass. Took them from Fairfax after the Combe Carey Hall case. Wasn’t like he was going to use them anymore.” He remarked casually.

I grimaced a little at the thought of them being taken from a dead man and turned them around in my hands. “It’s not a Source, is it? What’s with the lyre?”

“That’s the logo of the Orpheus Society,” Lucy provided.

“What, like the guy with the dead wife?”

“See!” Cubbins exclaimed “Kipps knew!”

Lucy sighed and rolled her eyes “Well, I’m sorry, they didn’t cover Greek Mythology in my extensive studies” she snarked. I sounded like her usual biting remarks, but I felt that I detected a little bit of hurt in there too.

“Doesn’t matter,” I shrugged. “The story was just an incredibly long-winded way of saying that what’s dead should stay dead and the living don’t belong in the underworld.”

Cubbins scoffed, but didn’t argue.

It looked like Tony had used his own idea too, because I could see a candle in the window of the first and second small houses they had planned to stop at.

That left the third and we caught them just as they left the dilapidated structure.

Tony stopped in his tracks when he saw the goggles I'd placed on top of my head.

“George,” he started slowly and pointed at them, “is that what I think it is?”

Cubbins shrugged “depends what you think it is.”

Tony tilted his head in consideration, “do they work?” he asked no one in particular.

“Seems so,” Cubbins responded before I could.

Tony huffed a little grin and punched my shoulder lightly “It would seem as if you’re not that useless after all then, Quill,”

I chuckled a little and showed my rapier that was covered in ectoplasm from earlier.

“It would seem so,”

I could see the excitement building in him, “I want to see it!” he turned that too-bright smile on me, and I almost had to squint.

“What’s next on the program then?” Lucy asked, “the church?”

Tony shook his head, but Munro responded.

“We've gotten reports from all three houses we’ve been to, that that place,” she pointed to a small cottage at the edge of the town, “is very haunted.”

“Apparently children go there for no apparent reason and they don’t come out alive.” Tony looked at us seriously. “Are you up for it?”

We nodded almost as one and started towards the building.

...

_Lucy:_

“Wouldn’t it be smart to wait until tomorrow so we can set up chains and things though?” I questioned.

“If you want, we could use one of the methods we used at Rotwell’s?” Holly offered. “We're enough people.”

“And what’s that?” Lockwood asked.

Holly dug out one of the chains. “We would do it if we had to move the circle while a Visitor was active. We each hold part of the chain, like so,” she put her fingers through the chain links, “and then we stand with the backs to each other. One of us will of course have to hold the ends together, and then we sort of... shuffle, into the house. That way we’ll all be safe in the iron circle.”

“Well, that’s going to look stupid,” George remarked.

“Nothing new to you then, Cubbins,” Quill bantered.

I ignored them.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” I grabbed a piece of the chain like Holly had shown me. She shot me a small, satisfied smile.

Lockwood shrugged and one by one, the boys copied us with George holding the ends together.

It was our longest chain, but even so it was a long, careful and slow shuffle as we kept bumping into each other. George kept cursing because he had a difficult time holding the ends together and Quill was complaining about having to walk backwards.

Even before we reached the front door, there was a hum in the air that set me on edge. I couldn’t pinpoint it exactly. It wasn’t the same sort of buzzing from the bone-glass or from Aickmere’s.

“This place must have been abandoned for a long time,” George noticed. “No iron.”

I looked around and saw that he was right. All the usual iron charms the other buildings, even the abandoned ones had, were missing. This place might have been empty since before the Problem started.

“You'd think that they’d at least put up an iron fence or something if it’s taken so many. Or that the city would do something,”

I scoffed, “what city? Have you forgotten where we are?”

George cleared his throat, but I couldn’t see if he were blushing because we had our backs turned against each other.

The closer we got to the front door, the louder the noise became.

Next to me, Lockwood had reached the handle and pressed it down. The door swung open with a clichéd creak and we all scoffed in unison.

The hum in the air when we got inside pressed against my skull. It was a _powerful_ spirit we were dealing with, but I couldn’t be entirely sure as the others seemed completely unaffected.

We put down the chain carefully, following up with all our equipment.

“There’s _definitely_ something in the air. And it doesn’t like us,” I informed the others in case they hadn’t noticed.

I looked around in the dark room. It reminded me of Bickerstaff's house and I half expected rats erupting from all corners.

It was aware somehow. I felt my skin break out in goosebumps and I was certain that _something_ was following my every move, waiting and daring me to step outside our circle.

It didn’t have long to wait and for once the foul-up wasn’t just mine.

In order to accommodate all five of us, we had made a big circle with the chain.

Too big.

The ends of the chains _just_ about reached each other but then George set down the thermos too quickly and knocked it over in the process. That created a domino effect which none of us realised until after the fact. The thermos knocked over Quill’s bag, which hit a canister of salt which knocked over a bottle of water that rolled into the chain, shifting it ever so slightly so a gap was created.

The effect was instant

An unearthly scream tore through the room, making everyone wince other than Quill and myself. Quill didn’t react at all because while he could see spirits thanks to the Orpheus goggles, he still couldn’t hear anything.

Me?

I crumpled to the floor. I hit my knees but didn’t register it until later because I couldn’t think. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even breathe. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t because my lungs wouldn’t cooperate. White lights danced before my eyes and I dug my nails so hard into my temples that I drew blood.

I was in agony. It felt like my brain was being ripped apart again and again. I slowly felt myself drifting and felt my muscles relax. It wasn’t because the screaming had stopped. It was because I was losing consciousness. Something wet was running out of my nose and ears.

Then I felt myself being scooped up by strong arms. I wanted to help carrying my own weight and put my arms around the neck of whoever carried me, but my body was completely limp. My muscles wouldn’t respond no matter how much I willed them to.

It was either the most powerful ghost-lock I had ever encountered, or my brain was turning into mush.

...

_Quill:_

Something had happened. As one, all the others clutched their ears and a powerful wind burst through the room almost knocking me over.

It took a moment for me to realise what was happening and it became horrifyingly clear when Lucy fell to her knees clutching and scratching her head.

“Shit,” I breathed, even though the others couldn’t hear me, “it’s a Screamer.”

I quickly took stock of the situation.

Thanks to the goggles I saw the apparition of a woman near the fireplace to the right.

The others were incapacitated in various degrees. I'd only seen this powerful a Screaming Spirit once when I was an agent. We'd lost three colleagues that night and I refused to go through that again.

First thing first – we needed to get Lucy out of here.

I tapped Tony on the cheek, pulling him out of the ghost lock.

“Get her out of here!” I yelled and pointed down at Lucy. I was careful to articulate the words clearly in case he wasn’t able to hear me and needed to lip-read.

I tapped the others who winced and still clutched their ears and I pointed towards the exit. They nodded and made a run for it.

Tony still seemed disoriented but snapped out of it when he saw Lucy crouched on the floor. Blood had started to seep out from where her nails were digging into her skin. When he lifted her up, I saw that blood had started to drip from her nose too. That was never a good sign.

I pointed towards the exit to spur him on, and he went backwards, the clever boy, not wanting to turn his back on the threat. Nevertheless, I covered them, walking backwards behind them with my rapier out. We could gather our stuff in the morning. Fuck this.

“Run as far away as you can,” I yelled at Tony, “remember there’s no iron fence,”

He nodded and slipped out the door, careful not to bump Lucy’s head on the frame. I hung back to make sure they were out entirely, but just as I was about to move out as well, another hard gust of wind blew through the cottage, slamming the door shut.

Shit.

...

_Lucy:_

I came to at an agonisingly slow pace. My head was in someone’s lap and a shaking hand was running through my hair while one was tapping my cheek.

“Lucy? Please wake up, Lucy. Come on,” someone whispered franticly.

“Quill?” I groaned quietly. He did seem to be there a lot whenever I was injured.

I heard a soft sigh and a small, huffed laugh, “No. It’s just me, sorry to disappoint.”

I slowly and with a lot of effort opened my eyes to see Lockwood looking down at me with a sad, gentle smile. He turned his head to look over his shoulder.

I scoffed a little, “you could never be a disappointment.”

He looked back at me and his smile stretched a bit. While it didn’t reach its full potential, it did reach his eyes which creased a little. He had brought me to the green near the foot of the old cross, next to the wrought iron fence that surrounded it. We almost had a full view of the entire village. I knew the church was behind me and far off in the distance I could just about make out the small cottage we had just been in.

“What happened?” I whispered.

He sighed and looked over his shoulder again, “Powerful Screaming Spirit. Looks like your Talent has reached a peak as well.”

That made sense. I still had a buzzing feeling in my ears.

“What about the others? Where are they?” I tried to sit up, but Lockwood pushed me back down and looked back towards the cottage as if he expected to be able to see some sort of change.

“I needed to make sure you were alright, but I’m going back there now. Do you think you’re okay to stay here by yourself?” He looked at me worriedly.

“To hell with staying here. I’m going with you.” I sat up and batted his hands away when he tried to push me down again. “Did the others get out?” I asked.

He hesitated. “Holly and George got out before us, but Quill was behind us and I’m not sure he made it. I didn’t wait to see, I just had to get you away from there, Lucy. And honestly, I think it’s a bad idea for you to go back. You’ll get hurt more if the Spirit isn’t subdued.” He looked back again and then to me, obviously torn

“I’m going back there, and that’s that.” I sneered.

He huffed in irritation. “Believe it or not, but I don’t want to see Quill hurt either. I _need_ to see that he’s alright, but I need you safe too! You’re killing me here, Lucy!” he snapped.

I scrambled unsteadily to my feet, supporting myself on the iron fence next to us.

He stood too and ran a hand through his hair in agitation, “Can’t you please stop being so bloody stubborn for crying out loud? If you would just stay put, I could run back and check on him for the both of us.”

Maybe he was right. The buzzing in my head was growing louder, but not painfully like before and it was different. It was more like –

I saw Lockwood’s eyes widen and his mouth go slack as he stared at something behind me.

“Lockwood?” I asked uncertainly.

“Look at it,” he breathed, “look at the size of it,”

I turned my head slowly, not sure I wanted to look.

It was the Creeping Shadow.

Even if I hadn’t heard of it being called that, that’s what I would have named it. There was no other name I could think of, but as a description it still fell ridiculously short.

Whatever this was, was gigantic. The ghost of the Ealing Cannibal had been huge, but it would have looked like a dwarf compared to this. It moved slowly and awkwardly across the graveyard.

I had never seen anything like it. It was greyish and it didn’t give off any other-light like the Shining Boy from earlier and it there wasn’t the same darkness that one might see from other apparitions. It didn’t look solid like a Spectre.

It was as if the fabric of reality had torn and distorted around it. Like it was there but wasn’t at the same time. There was a profound wrongness to it. Like it belonged here even less than the ghosts.

Behind it, it gave off flickering shadows as if the back of it was on fire and smoke trailed in its wake.

But that wasn’t all that came behind it.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Lockwood who must have seen the same as I did. I blindly grasped for his hand and squeezed it tight. I needed his reassurance that this was real.

He squeezed back, probably needing the same reassurance that this wasn’t a hallucination.

In the trailing mist of the apparition, new spirits rose from their graves. They came through the grass, and mounds of fresh graves of the many that had died in the village recently.

There were all sorts of ghosts. Spectres, Wraiths, Wisps, Shades and dozens of them, all in their burial clothes.

I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone completely dry.

The Creeping Shadow seemed to ignore them and moved across the graveyard with purpose.

It peculiarly went through the gate and then around the graveyard towards the forest.

The ghosts stood still but then, as one, they rushed forwards. The collective noise of them was like a roar and my heart felt like it was in my throat and I tried to scramble backwards because I was certain they were going for us.

Lockwood must have had the same idea because he quickly grabbed the gate and slammed it shut around the old stone cross, effectively creating an iron circle for us.

To our relief, the ghosts all turned and tore after the Shadow.

Then all was silent, as if it had never happened in the first place.

Lockwood and I stood for several moments holding each other’s shaking hands.

“We need to find the others,” I whispered, “I’ll keep my distance, but there’s no way I’m staying here alone.”

Lockwood gave my hand a squeeze.

“Let’s get going then,” he responded in a small voice and helped me up by the hand he was holding.

I gave him a small smile. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go for the church,”

“Yeah. Yes, it was.” He breathed.

The ground crunched beneath our feet, as we moved towards the cottage with increasing haste.

We both took off in a sprint once we heard Holly’s frantic cries and fists hammering on wood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for hanging in there with me!  
> I'm really happy with the way things are going and my plans for the story are shaping up nicely. I'm especially looking forward to La Belle Dame right now. It's going to be absolutely horrible. In the best way.
> 
> Please leave me a review. The last few I got really jumpstarted me on a bad day, so thank you for that!


	18. Stuck

Right.

Note to self: Iron padlocks could be a great addition to the equipment.

I needed to keep that idea in mind for when I survived this.

 _If_ I survived this.

Innovation had to take the backseat for the moment though because the Screaming Spirit was advancing on me.

I grabbed my rapier and prayed that I hadn’t forgotten everything I knew.

I tried to take stock of the situation. The Spirit was obviously strong, but the thing with Screaming Spirits was that as a general, their scream was their strongest offence and for once, my lack of Talent was an advantage. Most who lost their Talent could still hear _some_ psychic noises, but for me, that Talent had been cut drastically to the point of me being close to psychically deaf. The only thing I got was an eerie sort of echo.

Usually a Screaming Spirit would paralyse its victims and then go drown them in ectoplasm, but given that she couldn’t paralyse me, she’d have to catch me.

She came at me, her hair spread around her like a halo, the other-light shone a stark blue.

She was wearing what seemed to be an old-fashioned night-gown with frills and small embroidered flowers.

I had my rapier in hand, still covered in the plasm from previously and I swung it in the strongest ward-knot I knew, hoping that I remembered all the steps.

I must’ve cocked it up somehow because she barely flickered and kept advancing.

I wracked my brain and came up empty.

Then I remembered a rather nifty move I’d seen a while back. I lunged for the chain and swung it around and through the ghost, effectively dispelling it.

It worked but I was happy no one was there to witness it because that would have been embarrassing.

I swung the chain too low. It hit me and I almost managed to get tangled in it.

Now I had to work fast. I had no idea when the Spirit would rematerialize, and I needed to find the Source.

Fortunately, I had a good idea where to look.

I'd first seen her near the fireplace so that was where I scrambled to.

There wasn’t anything obvious to see. I cursed. Why was it never obvious?

It was a large fireplace, and I went to work, searching for anything that might be a possible Source.

Nothing on the mantle and nothing on the outside. I started examining the bricks on the edge of the fireplace to see if any of them were lose, but still found nothing.

I realised I would have to get in there to examine further, but it was risky. I wouldn’t have a lot of space if I needed to use my rapier. Putting a chain around the fireplace would be useless if the Source was in there.

I felt a chill creeping up at me, making the hair on my arms and on the back of my neck stand.

I turned around, with the rapier already out and swinging. It wasn’t elegant, it wouldn’t work for long, but it saved my skin this time around. She had been inches away from me.

My breathing came out fast even if I hadn’t been running and I tried to steel my nerves. I knew she wouldn’t let me out voluntarily, so I’d have to find the Source.

I got into the fireplace. Thankfully, it was a large one. So large that I could actually stand up in there. I tapped more bricks, but still nothing. Nothing in the bottom of the hearth either.

I stood up to my full height and I noticed the damper was open just a bit. It had to be up there.

It was a small opening, and I stuck my hand through it, feeling my way along. I had to stretch my entire arm up there to reach the smoke shelf on the inside. My fingers touched something metallic. It was so cold my fingers almost got stuck to it. It was a blade of some sort. The scraping of it against the brick sounded loud to me. The only other sound was the faint echo of the Screaming Spirit and my own breathing.

I wondered if the others had left me. I knew I wasn’t their favourite person. Cubbins had only invited me for the experiment after all. Tony would probably be happy to be rid of me. I only hoped Lucy was alright and that he would be good to her.

As I got a grip on the handle of the knife, I started feeling the cold creeping up on me again. I tried to lash out with my rapier, but I didn’t have enough space from within the fireplace.

I tried to pull my arm back down and out of the damper, my stomach dropped when I realised that I was stuck. I felt the blood rushing through my head and the tightening in my chest as the panic started seeping in.

“Shit” I hissed,

The other-light pulsed from outside of the fireplace. It would be all over me in seconds. I had two choices. Either I could try to use the rapier to drive her away again or I could seal the Source and be rid of her entirely. Option one could go on until I was dead, or morning came, with the former being more realistic. Option two would be swifter but would leave me defenceless for an undetermined period of time.

My brain felt like treacle, like every thought had to be forced out and I was constantly distracted by the pain in my arm. The fingers were starting to feel prickly.

I had to seal that damn Source. I used my free hand to try to get the net I had stuffed in my pocket, but it was on the wrong side, so I had to struggle to reach the damn thing.

The net was one of the smaller variants and it had become all creased up in my pocket, but it would have to do. I shook it loose and carefully manoeuvred it, so it covered my entire palm.

A strong gust of wind almost sent it flying out of my hand, but I managed to catch it before I dropped it. If I dropped it or the source, there would be no second chances.

I felt along the knife to make sure I got it right. I pinched the tip of the blade between two fingers. With any luck I would be able to slide it out next to my arm and drop it into my net-covered hand.

At least that was the plan.

I ignored the biting cold the knife was radiating and started inching it towards the opening where my arm was stuck. Another gust of wind threatened to blow the net out of my hand, but I kept it steady. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a ghostly nightgown coming closer to the fireplace.

I held my breath as I let go of the knife and let it slide downwards.

I let out a hiss when I felt it slice across my cheek, but almost cried in relief when I felt the heaviness of it in my palm.

I hurriedly twisted my hand around and made sure the Source was completely coved by the Seal.

My ears exploded. There was a strange change in the air pressure and my ears popped and noise came through from the outside. Whatever had caught my arm had released it as well.

I let myself slide down and took a few seconds to calm down. I pulled the goggles down, so they hung around my neck.

I realised that someone had started trying to break down the door, which was nice of them I supposed. I got up and walked over and just as they were about to try again, I opened it.

A body came flying past me and sprawled on the floor.

“Careful Cubbins. Don’t hurt yourself.”

I looked up and saw Tony and Lucy come running towards us.

They both stopped short when I came, staggering out of the door, followed by Cubbins who pushed my shoulder in retaliation. It was a bit sore from being stuck.

Tony leaned forward with his hands on his knees. Lucy staggered next to him and supported herself with a hand on his shoulder.

To my surprise, they _both_ looked relieved.

“I said I wanted to see it, you idiot!” Tony yelled, out of breath.

I chuckled a bit and shook my head in exasperation before shouting back at him,

“It’s not my fault your ears are so bloody delicate!”

Lucy made a sound of indignation, but I only shrugged and smiled.

“Quill, you’re bleeding!” Munro gasped somewhere to my left and before I had time to react a soft tissue was pressed against my cheek.

“It’s fine,” I told her and replaced her hand with my own.

She scoffed, “it’s certainly _not_ fine. We need to clean it.”

I looked at her with an eye roll and an amused smile, “I’m aware, _Holly_ , but I think I need to get cleaned _in general,”_

She took a small step back and looked up and down at me before breaking into a smile of her own. It broke down into chuckles and then into a full laugh.

I could only imagine the way I looked. Like a chimneysweep no doubt. I grinned back at her,

“What do you think the odds are that the inn has decent shower facilities?”

Her smile was replaced by a look of horror, “if they're anything like the toilets, I wish you luck,”

She patted my chest in sympathy and the took a look at her palm and grimaced in disgust.

I snorted.

Tony and Lucy reached us, still a little winded from what I assumed was a long sprint.

“I think that’s enough for tonight, yeah?” he suggested.

Lucy nodded, “We need to talk,” she looked seriously at us in turn and I was happy I wasn’t the only one she looked at with that expression of doom.

Tony looked unusually pale next to her, or maybe it was just a trick of the light. The moon was our only lamp after all.

We trudged back to the inn in solemn silence.

...

_Lucy:_

I almost cried in relief when I saw Quill was alright. I had never seen him so dirty though.

I wanted to throw myself around him in a great big hug, but I didn’t.

He had kissed me again earlier in the evening and I still didn’t know how to deal with that. I figured it was better to keep some distance until I understood things better.

Otherwise, I might do something stupid. It certainly wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

Besides, he had been quick to apologise, so it was likely that he had just been caught up in the moment. If it had been Holly there with him, it would probably have been the same result.

I had a cold pit in my stomach as we went inside the inn. Probably because we were about to talk about the Creeping Shadow.

We all sat back down at the same table where we had dinner and I couldn’t help but smile a little when I noticed the white rings around his eyes from the goggles. The rest of him was covered in soot. Considering how dirty he was, I had no bad conscience about putting my leg on his lap. I needed to rest my ankle. It was a bit sore after our run across the green.

My smile fell quickly though when Lockwood started talking.

“We saw the Creeping Shadow.” He ran a hand through this hair and his leg was bouncing so much it shook the table. I put a hand on his knee to make him stop.

“Turns out the Skinner boy wasn’t exaggerating. It really was –“ He trailed off, with wide eyes, seemingly in lost in the memory.

Quill frowned in concern, “It must’ve been quite something if it has _you_ all freaked out.”

“I am not freaked out!” Lockwood protested and crossed his arms defensively. “I’m not! Do I look freaked out? George, do I look freaked out?”

“Absolutely. I agree with Kipps on this one.” George responded, looking a little freaked out himself, probably about agreeing with Quill on anything.

“Well, _I’m_ freaked out.” I admitted, “and not to brag, but it takes _a lot_ to freak me out.”

Lockwood covered my hand with his and gave it a little squeeze before letting go. Quill put a hand on my boot-covered foot. Even though it stretched my leg a bit uncomfortably, I rested my head in my hands with my elbows on the table and continued.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It was gigantic, and it was all… wrong. I’ve never seen a ghost look like that. It crossed the graveyard and behind it, ghosts just came popping up and following it into the woods.”

“That’s _fascinating_. I wish I’d seen it,” George whispered in awe.

“Trust me, you don’t,” I assured him.

Quill tilted his head in contemplation, “Were the ghosts coming out of _every_ grave or just some of them?”

“There were lots, but not all from all the graves. Why? Did you ever read about something like that?” Lockwood asked him.

Quill shook his head. “Never. There’s nothing in the histories about something like that. I haven’t even heard about anything like it in fiction. There might be something in the Black Library at Fittes House.”

“You know what’s strange?” George asked, “How come Rotwell haven’t caught on to this thing? It’s practically in their backyard.”

Lockwood frowned in contemplation but didn’t say anything.

Holly sighed. “Why don’t we all have a nice cup of hot chocolate? Skinner has some behind the bar. I’ll put the kettle on.”

She left for the kitchen. Quill caught my eyes quickly and gave me a gentle smile.

“I’ll go help. Maybe I can find a sink.” He stood and put my leg carefully down on his chair. He studied his nails in disgust, and I had a flashback to when he had studied mine in the hospital. How on earth could I think of that as simpler times?

That left George, Lockwood and me.

To my relief, the silence that surrounded us wasn’t awkward. If fact it was almost like those evenings from before, when it was just us three coming back home after a gruelling case and in spite of horrific visions, confusing kisses and doubts about the future, I felt like everything was going to be alright.

“I missed you idiots,” I mumbled sleepily.

Lockwood’s face broke in a grin and even George quirked a little smile.

“We missed you too, Luce,” Lockwood returned and put a hand on my shoulder.

Not long after, Quill and Holly came back, carrying cups of hot chocolate. They shared a smile before putting them down on the table and I wondered what they’d been talking about.

Quill’s face was not entirely clean, but it was obvious that he’d managed to find a sink somewhere. He had to have been scrubbing it quite fiercely because his cheeks were all pink.

“So, I think it should be obvious that we have to raid the Rotwell Institute tomorrow,” Lockwood declared.

Quill sat down heavily on his chair and put my foot back on his lap. “Why, Tony? Why on earth would that be obvious?” he sighed deeply exasperated.

“Well, it’s as George said. Rotwell haven’t found out about the Creeping Shadow and done something about it, but what if,” he paused for dramatic effect, “what if they haven’t found out because they already knew about it? What if they’re actually the ones _causing it_?”

“Could you maybe explain your thought process here? You’ve always had this habit of expecting other people to be mind-readers,” Quill rubbed his face, which had once again turned its usual pale shade.

Lockwood huffed impatiently.

“Fine,” he rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, “you know about the problem Lucy has, yes? The stolen skull?”

Quill nodded and gestured for him to continue. And he did. It felt like hours before Lockwood had explained and processed everything about the and I almost nodded off several times. Sometime during Lockwood’s speech, Quill had removed my boot and was inspecting my ankle while still listening. His careful touch felt more like a caress than anything else, but I was probably reading too much into it. We weren’t exactly alone after all.

“-but maybe it’s a good thing that you’re here actually.” Lockwood finally finished. I was surprised that he wasn’t protesting at the way Quill was sitting with my foot. All the more reason to think that it was a purely clinical situation.

Quill looked at him sceptically, “and why on earth is that a good idea?”

“Because you were with us in Chelsea,” Lockwood smirked slightly, “and it just so happens that almost exactly when we shut down the operation there, the problems started here in Aldbury Castle.”

“What a coincidence.” George deadpanned.

“So, who’s with me tomorrow?” Lockwood asked and looked around at each of us.

George, Holly and I all raised our hands immediately.

A moment later, Quill raised his as well with a deep sigh and an eyeroll. “Fine. But if we get arrested, I’m blaming you completely and I’ll accuse you of kidnapping me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for still keeping up with this story and thank you for commenting! It means so much, whether it's a long comment or just a small 'hi' to let me know you're still here.
> 
> To you Americans - I'm seriously worried about you guys. I hope that everything will be okay.


	19. Worse Than Fire

_Lucy:_

Once upon a time, before the Problem started, there was a saying that went something like “to sleep like the dead.” Afterwards, when the dead started coming back, people started saying “to sleep like a baby” which made even less sense. I once babysat for my oldest sister, Elisabeth when she had her first and let me tell you; babies do not sleep peacefully.

Regardless of what people used to say, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow that night. I was exhausted, physically, emotionally and even spiritually after seeing that _thing_ in the graveyard. It was as if it had hit me in a spot I hadn’t previously known existed. Like the world had tilted slightly to the left and I had to learn how to walk steadily again.

If I had any dreams, I didn’t remember them the next morning. I woke before Holly and realised, much to my delight that miss Perfect was snoring.

I dressed quickly and silently and slipped out of the room without waking Holly up.

I slowly walked down the stairs. The mess we had made when we took care of the Shining Boy was still there, but the room somehow felt lighter and cheerier.

I headed towards the bar, where Quill was already sitting at the narrow table I’d come to think of as ours, with a large cup of coffee.

“You look like shit,” I commented when I saw his tired face. He still had traces of dirt on his scalp, which made his hair look even more like a bonfire and he had dark shadows around his eyes. Coppery stubble had begun to show, and his general colour seemed to be a couple of shades paler than usual which made his freckles stand out even more.

He snorted “Can you blame me?”

I couldn’t really, I thought with a grimace as I sat down across from him.

“You mean George isn’t the best bed-mate?” I teased.

He shuddered and I laughed a little.

Then he turned his green eyes on me. “I’ve certainly had better ones,” he told me quietly.

The way he looked at me made me blush and then I thought of something.

“Do I snore?”

His eyebrows wrinkled in confusion, “what?”

“It’s just that you’re the only person I’ve ever slept with.” I shrugged, “I mean, at home I actually used to sleep in the – why are you laughing?” I interrupted myself when I saw that he'd gone pink in the face and his shoulders were shaking slightly.

Then I swatted his arm when I realised what I’d said, and he broke out into a full laugh.

“I would’ve been gentler if I’d known I was your first,” he got out in between chuckles.

“I don’t know why I put up with you, you idiot,” I shook my head. I was certain that I was the colour of an over-ripe strawberry.

“No,”

“You don’t know either?”

He grinned cheekily at me, “I mean no, you don’t snore. You drool a bit though,”

“Well, you – you snuggle! You turn into a bloody octopus when you sleep!”

He leaned forward “I can assure you, there was no spooning going on with Cubbins, if that’s what you’re insinuating,” he told me seriously.

I snorted a laugh and didn’t really know whether to feel disgusted or amused by the mental images.

“So, George is the exception to the rule then,”

He shook his head “No, he isn’t,” he took a long sip of his coffee.

There was a short comfortable silence in which we merely sat, staring at each other. Eventually I broke it,

“Those throwing knives you gave me; would you mind teaching me how to use them? Then you can borrow my bed once Holly wakes up,” I winked at him.

“You don’t need to bribe me, Lucy but I appreciate it all the same,”

He yawned and stretched which made his shirt ride up a little. I looked away.

…

_Quill:_

We walked together along the same path I’d taken on my walk yesterday. Lucy kept sending the graveyard suspicious glances as we passed, almost as if she expected something to pop out of there at any moment.

It worried me because Lucy Carlyle was one of the toughest agents out there. If she was spooked, everyone else ought to be terrified.

“Tell me about your Type Three friend,” I prompted as we reached the path through the forest.

She snorted, “the term friend is a bit of a stretch but what do you want to know?”

“I dunno. Just stuff. Like what’s its Source? Does it have a name?”

“It’s an ugly brown skull in a ghost jar. It actually used to be Bickerstaff’s assistant. You remember, the bloke who made the bone-mirror?”

I nodded, “The one who almost killed me? I know we get almost killed on a regular basis, but I was rescued in a quite spectacular fashion,” I had to admit with a fond smile.

She grinned at me “A rescue and a haircut, wasn’t it?”

I ran a hand through my hair. I could almost feel the chain ripping through it still.

“Anyway. It won’t tell me its name. My guess is that it’s because it’s something terribly boring. It’s quite proud of being a mighty Type Three and then an ordinary name might take away some of that mystery it so likes about itself.”

“You mean like Tony?”

That earned me a swat to the stomach. I winced a bit, she got me exactly where I’d hit myself with the chain the night before.

“No but imagine being a powerful and rare spirit and then your name’s I dunno, John.”

“Did you try to practice with the knives?” I changed the topic as we reached the clearing.

She shook her head, “didn’t really have the time and I didn’t really have any place to practice. The knives are broader than the rapiers so I figured that I would ruin Joe or Esmeralda if I practiced on them.”

I chuckled a bit, “he still calls them that?”

She looked up at me with a curious smile “Floating Joe and Lady Esmeralda. Did he call them that before?”

“He named one of them Lady Esmeralda and I was the one to name Floating Joe,” I smiled fondly at the memory, “we made them together. Back when I started at Fittes. He was so excited. Wanted to lean to fence too, so I taught him.”

“And then the student surpassed the master,” she teased.

I poked her in the ribs, making her jump with a yelp. She batted my hand away when I tried again.

“Be careful! I am armed!” she warned at patted the knives at her side.

I grinned, “so you are. Now, shall we teach you how to use them?”

“Yes please,” she was bouncing a little with nervous excitement, which was honestly adorable. I obviously didn’t say that out loud because even when she wasn’t armed, Lucy Carlyle was _always_ dangerous. And here I was, stupidly adding to her skills.

...

_Lucy:_

I absolutely knew I was going to make an arse out of myself. I was completely out of my depth, but at the same time I really wanted to learn. I felt like running away before I embarrassed myself, but I stayed put.

He took one of the knives from the sheath that was attached to my belt and held it up in front of me.

“Now, this isn’t exactly the best knife for a beginner, but I’m sure you’ll manage anyway,”

He went on to show me several grips and what they were called but I forgot them as soon as I heard.

“Now, I'd like to see how you'd do, relying purely on instinct. Just throw it at that tree over there.”

He pointed at a large pine tree. The trunk was big, and it wasn’t too far away. I could do it. Maybe.

My stomach was a big ball of nerves, but I took the knife he was holding out for me and grabbed in what I hoped was one of the right ones.

I aimed, took a deep breath and threw it.

I watched as it flew, rotating through the air and continued into the forest. I was two feet off target. I was waiting for the inevitable laughing, but when I looked at him, Quill only smiled and nodded.

“Not bad,” he commented.

I scoffed, “how was that not bad? I wasn’t anywhere near the target,”

“Well, when I did it the first time, my mum had to take me to the hospital because I had a knife stuck in my foot. It had gone right through my shoe,” he confided in me with slightly pink cheeks.

I blinked “And you just let me do this? What if the same had happened to me?”

“Your boots,” he pointed downwards, “Those things will hold off anything, don’t worry.”

He went into the woods to retrieve the knife and I realised that I didn’t like being alone. Not after what happened last night. He was only gone for a minute, but that was enough to set me on edge. I hated it. I didn’t like being dependent on others. Dependence made you weak. I had learned the hard way that I could only truly rely on myself. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, so I pushed the anxiety down. I wouldn’t let it get to me.

“You’re off to a good start,” Quill noted when he returned, “We just need to polish a little.”

He gave me the knife again and I took a stance.

“Now, try to relax,” he told me quietly as he came up behind me. He put both hands on my shoulders, forcing them down. I realised how tense I had actually been, and I tried to force myself to relax the rest of my body. It was incredibly difficult though and I put it down to the fear I had from the Creeping Shadow. It certainly couldn’t have anything to do with the way Quill put his hands on my hips to make me twist slightly and nudged my right leg to put it more forward.

“If you stand like this, you naturally correct the angle,” he told me quietly, close to my ear, “try again,”

He didn’t move and I swallowed hard. He was so close that I could smell the now familiar scent coming off him even though it was a bit weakened. I could hear his calm deep breathing and I used it to bring my own under control by synchronising with his. He must have noticed because he came even closer, pressing against me so I could feel him breathing behind me. He put a hand over my diaphragm.

“Deep breaths down here, Lucy,” he whispered in my ear, “don’t move your shoulders, it'll throw off your aim,”

A shiver went through me and I was certain that if my aim were off, it wouldn’t be because of my breathing.

I took a single deep breath and threw the knife.

It hit the tree alright, but it clanged off it and landed in the grass below.

I huffed in frustration.

Quill stepped away from me with a chuckle, “patience, Lucy. That,” he pointed at the knife, “is going to happen more than you can imagine now in the beginning. It’s _beautiful_ for a second throw.”

He went to pick it up and handed me the knife back. He stepped away a little “try again, but this time you should try to put in a bit more force,”

He crossed his arms in front of himself and stood off to the side, observing. I tried to take a deep calming breath and threw. Again, it merely bounced off the tree. This time I picked the knife up myself. I went back gritted my teeth and threw with the same result. This went on for ages. Quill only stood a bit away, leaning against a tree and giving encouragements here and there.

I assumed he kept away in order to avoid being stabbed, which in all fairness wasn’t an unlikely scenario. If he told me to be patient one more time, I would finally hit the target, only the target would be him.

After what felt like the hundredth attempt, I gave off a shriek of rage. I didn’t care that he was watching I just wanted to go and stab that fucking tree by myself.

I threw the knife, determined that if I didn’t get it right this time, I would quit. I flung it with quite a bit more force due to my anger and as soon as I’d let go of it, I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to look.

_Thuck_

That was a different sound than before. I almost didn’t dare to look.

“Lucy!” Quill chuckled. He’d come closer again, “look!”

I slowly opened one eye and then the other and to my complete astonishment, the knife was there. In the tree, sticking out proudly.

“I did it!” I whispered in disbelief and turned around “I did it!”

I threw my arms around his neck in a hug and he pulled me close by the waist.

“I knew you would,” he mumbled.

I drew back a little, but kept my arms around his neck, “Thank you,” I breathed with a smile.

My breath hitched when I noticed the way he was looking at me. All pride and something else. I couldn’t bring myself to move and for several moments we stood like that. My hands locked behind his neck and his arms around my waist as if we were slow-dancing.

I looked at his lips and noticed how they had quirked into a small lopsided smile and my eyes darted to his again.

I realised that I wanted to kiss him. Not as an experiment or as some sort of impulsive emotional relief.

I just wanted to feel his warm lips on mine. It would be so easy here in the forest. We were completely alone. No one would come looking for us for hours. We could lose ourselves in each other if we wanted.

He bit his bottom lip and looked down on mine, and I decided to go for it. To hell with the rest.

I kept my eyes locked on his as I leaned forward but he deflected and kissed my forehead instead.

I let go of him and looked away. I felt like an idiot.

He put his hand under my chin and turned my face back to his.

“You’re amazing, Lucy, and I think the world of you. Never doubt that.”

I felt myself smile a little despite my embarrassment.

I had never felt so confused in my entire life. I was confused by his behaviour. I was confused by my own reactions, not to mention my emotions. Especially because I still had feelings for Lockwood. That much was clear to me. What the hell was I doing?

...

_Quill:_

This was stupid. _I_ was stupid. This was self-torture of the worst kind. And why was I doing it? Right – because Lucy asked. I would walk through fire if she asked me to.

But maybe this was too much. Being so close to her and not kiss her the way I longed to do was worse than fire.

And when she leaned forward it took all the willpower I had not to kiss her lips and god, it hurt. When I saw the wounded expression, she tried to hide from me, that hurt even worse.

But I couldn’t do that to her, I couldn’t do it to Tony, and I couldn’t do it to myself.

What I wanted, what I _needed_ wasn’t for fun or to sate some form of curiosity. Standing close to her was torture, but to kiss her, to be with her and then to lose her only moments after when she inevitably changed her mind would be worse.

I couldn’t do it, unless I was confident that she was as committed to start something as I was, and I was certain that she wasn’t. She could easily crush my heart.

That and it would complicate things further between her and Tony and she didn’t need that kind of tension.

I had to keep it together. And I had to back the hell off for everyone’s sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. The American election came and went. And now I'm the fucked one, so to speak. They found a new mutation of the Corona Virus in mink. Actually they found more than 200 mutations, but I don't know how much people on the outside know about this. This strain, however, can seriously mess with the chances of developing a vaccine and it was found approx. 30 km from my home. Mass culling has started because it was found that mink are great at mutating this shit. It's horrible of course for the thousands of people who are losing their livelyhood and I hope they find something else to do as fast as possible, but I honestly hope that this is the end of Danish fur industry.  
> It is, however a scary situation. We aren't quarantined, but a lot of our customers are coming from the north, so I have a bad feeling that it will affect our income soon enough.  
> I'm writing a lot these days to take my mind off things and I'm considering to start my own story soon. It's in the works anyway.
> 
> Anywho - thank you for sticking with this story. I kinda feel bad for the poor characters, but I'm still planning for a nice ending for them all.
> 
> Please leave a comment, even if it's just to say hi ❤  
> I love you guys


	20. Worth it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the kind and wonderful comments!  
> I hope you enjoy this next chapter! It has a lot more Lockwood in it.

_Lucy:_

When we returned to the inn, Holly was up, and I wanted to make good on my promise to Quill.

“Holly, can Quill take a nap in our room?” I figured it was better to ask. I highly doubted she would have left her knickers lying around, but it was always better to check.

“Sure, I’ll walk him up there. I need to take some things from my bag. Do you need anything?” she asked, ever polite.

I shook my head and went into the bar to get myself a cup of tea. We had truly made ourselves at home here. It might have been a bit rude, but I didn’t feel like waiting for Skinner, so I went to the kitchen myself.

I fixed tea for myself and Holly and was surprised to see that she hadn’t returned by the time I came back with the tea. Instead Lockwood sat at our table with a newspaper open in front of him. They took their tea the same way so he might as well have it.

He smiled widely in surprise when I put the chipped mug down in front of him.

“Thanks Luce,”

A warmth spread inside me and it had nothing to do with the tea I’d just taken a sip of.

“Anything interesting in the paper?”

I sat down across from him.

“Not really. Just the same parties and complaints about DEPRAC as usual. They suspect a new cluster is on the rise in Croydon.” He folded it up and put it down.

“Do you want to go?”

He shook his head, “We need to get to the bottom of this first,” he smiled gently at me, “and we need to get that skull of yours back.”

I sighed, “Is it strange that I’m worried about it?”

He cocked his head a little, “I know that I don’t know so much about your uh – social interactions while you were away, but I imagine that you spent a lot of time with the skull. Formed a bond of sorts maybe. So, I would say that it probably isn’t too strange. I mean, I don’t know what you see in it, but I can’t talk with it either,” he shrugged.

“You don’t know half,” my cheeks pinked a little when I thought of all the remarks the skull had made about Lockwood, “I don’t know what I see in it either. It’s a snarky, foul old thing –“

“Bit like Quill then. Now it makes sense. You just replaced the skull with him,” he remarked with a teasing grin.

I scoffed and smacked him a bit with the newspaper which made him laugh. It was lovely to see him not only mention Quill by his own initiative, but to do it by first name, in relation to me and without so much as a frown. I couldn’t help but smile either.

“I don’t know about that. I get much less encouragement to commit homicide from Quill,”

Lockwood snorted and stirred his tea absently. We sat in comfortable silence for a while. I'd missed that. Just being together. It had been ages since we were alone. If felt like finding a favourite sweater after it had been missing for half the winter. Warm, comfortable and familiar.

“Do you think you’re up for our little mission tonight?”

I smiled slightly. “I think I am. I mean, the ankle is a bit sore, but I think I can manage,”

“Are you sure?” he frowned.

“Yeah,”

He looked like he was having some sort of internal debate and several heartbeats went by before he continued.

“Lucy, I must confess that even if I feel somewhat... uncomfortable talking about it, I’ve had quite a few bad moments in my life – don’t pity me or anything, I’m only telling you to put this in perspective.”

I nodded slowly, wondering where this was heading.

“I’ve lost a lot of people I care about and when I almost lost you too, I couldn’t –“ he interrupted himself and looked away.

I could tell that he felt ill at ease, but he made an effort to tell me something, so I barely breathed. It was a bit like trying to stay still in front of a scared animal. I was afraid that any movement could break the moment and he would shut down like usual.

“I can’t lose you, Lucy. I know that I’ve treated you horribly this past while, but I’ve been so scared that you would disappear in one way or another and I’ve been punishing you for that which isn’t fair. I know that I’ve been pushing too hard for you to come back to the company, but I need you to know that you are first and foremost a friend to me. And that’s no matter what the future brings or what you uh – choose to do.”

“Even if I don’t come back to the company?”

His lips tightened into a thin line, “Yes. Even if you don’t. I just don’t want you to disappear and ignore us like last time.”

I chewed my lower lip a bit. I didn’t want to ruin the good mood, but there was something that needed to be set straight.

“Did you honestly think that I wanted to stop seeing you because I quit the company?”

He looked away from me “Well you didn’t exactly come to see us during the time we spent apart.”

I huffed “I don’t know if you remember our last argument, Lockwood, but you made it _abundantly_ clear that I wasn’t welcome anymore. And you didn’t come to see me either, until you needed my help.”

I stared at a crack in the rough table surface. Some crumbs from the biscuits we had eaten the night before had gotten stuck down there. I didn’t know why that was important.

He sighed deeply and leaned back in his chair, “I didn’t know why you wanted to leave in the first place. Still don’t if I’m honest.”

I scratched at the crumbs in the table. Quill was right. I needed Lockwood to be honest with me, but I realised that I needed that no matter if our relationship would turn romantic or if we should stay friends. But I couldn’t be a hypocrite. I was withholding information too. I looked up at him and saw that he too was studying the table.

“Would you like to know what I _really_ saw underneath Aickmere's? What the Fetch showed me?”

Lockwood looked at me sharply and I bit my lip, but I couldn’t back out now.

“It was you. Only as a Visitor.” I told him with a small voice.

He drew in a sharp breath but didn’t react otherwise.

“You told me that it was my doing. That you had died trying to save me,” I continued and scratched at the crumbs a bit harder, “and I realised that it wasn’t such an unlikely scenario. I lost control at Aickmere’s and it put everyone in danger. Bobby Vernon almost died-"

“But you saved him,” Lockwood interjected

I huffed a little. “does it really count as saving someone when you’re the one to put them in danger in the first place? Anyway, you know very well, that it wasn’t the first time I put the team in danger.”

“Lucy, you were just trying to explore-"

“No, it’s more than that,” I cut him off. “The skull told me that other ghosts can sense that I can communicate with them. That attracts them to me, and it makes them excited.”

Lockwood frowned, “but surely we could have help-"

“You have a bad habit of putting yourself in unnecessarily dangerous situations, especially if you think others are in danger, Lockwood. And what I had to do to develop and control the powers I have was _dangerous_. It still is.”

Lockwood frowned “But we could have helped you,”

I snorted “You clearly don’t remember the arguments we had about it then. They certainly didn’t help matters either.”

His cheeks turned a bit pink, “but still,” he looked at his hands, “if we'd just talked,”

I shook my head, “but we didn’t,” I looked away from him, “you were avoiding me. I was sad and disappointed when you hired Holly–“

“Ah! So, it _was_ about Holly” he interrupted.

I rolled my eyes “No. It wasn’t about Holly. It was about you cutting me out of the process of hiring her.”

He frowned in confusion, “But I’m the boss, Lucy. It’s _my_ _company_ so _I_ decide who works there.”

“Of course,” I breathed. “I’m not trying to challenge your authority in the company or anything. I'd just come to think that we were more of a team and that you valued my opinion.” Tears started to prickle in my eyes, and I wanted to look away, but forced myself to look him directly in the eye.

He looked uncomfortable. “It’s not that I don’t val—I just really liked Holly.”

“I’m _very_ aware of that fact. You didn’t actually talk about anything else up until the day I left. And I resented Holly, which was wrong of me.”

“I didn’t-"

“You absolutely did, but it’s fine, really. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I – it doesn’t? Why doesn’t it matter?” he looked a bit hurt, but I didn’t understand why.

I shrugged, “because now I know Holly better. She’s become a good friend to me. Although I have to admit that I was just a bit disappointed when she told me that she was the one who had missed me the most.”

Lockwood’s brow frowned in confusion, “But she didn’t. _I –_ we _all_ missed you very much.”

He swallowed hard and loosened his tie a little, “anyway, my point is that the most important thing to me is that you’re safe.” He looked me in the eye, “I know that I can’t keep you out of danger with the profession we're in, but as a leader and as your friend, I will refuse to bring you on this mission unless you’re absolutely certain.”

I smiled a small smile and my eyes felt terribly wet. “I’m absolutely certain,” I confirmed with deliberately clear enunciation, “but could you please do me the same courtesy?”

He smiled widely at me and chuckled a bit as if I’d said something silly, “but I haven’t been injured.”

God, that boy could be stupid sometimes. I wanted to shake him and scream at him that I wanted him safe too and probably would have done so if Holly hadn’t chosen that moment to return.

I'd completely forgotten about her and I suddenly found myself wondering why she had taken so long. And what item she had needed from her bag when she clearly wasn’t carrying anything.

“Is he all tucked in?” I asked, trying for a casual tone, which thought I pulled off alright.

Holly huffed a small laugh.

“Apparently Quill didn’t sleep too well last night so we decided to let him sleep in our room,” I explained when Lockwood looked confused.

Then he broke into wide, slightly sardonic smile “I don’t think George had too much rest either.” he was obviously satisfied with his choice to take the camp bed.

“I take it he’s still sleeping then?” Holly asked.

Lockwood nodded, “probably best if we let them. Hopefully, we won’t see any complications tonight but when have we ever been that lucky?” he asked rhetorically, “We all need to be well rested and in fine form.”

“I think I’ll have a nap later too,” I yawned. I could already feel my batteries draining.

“Why not now? You look about ready to pass out,” Lockwood frowned

I made a small snort “Where, Lockwood?”

His cheeks pinked a bit, “right. Well, uh – maybe you could take a walk with me then? I’d like to take a quick look at the institute from the outside in the daylight so we can make a strategy.”

I nodded. Walking might keep me awake.

“I’ll check our stock and pack some light bags so they’re ready for tonight,” Holly offered.

“That would be lovely, thanks Hol. We can have a late lunch around three-ish and then make our strategy there.”

With that, Lockwood stood. He offered me his hand and pulled me up to stand.

I jumped up and down a couple of times to try to shake off the drowsiness I felt.

Once outside, we walked in silence, both of us casting wary glances at the graveyard.

“It was this way the Shadow went, wasn’t it?” Lockwood asked, pointing up the hill.

I nodded, “That’s where Skinner told us it was seen too.”

It was a bit nippy, so I had drawn the parka tight around me, with my hands in my pockets.

“What d’you reckon it is?” he asked. He was wearing a scarf, but it was loosely slung around his neck, almost defying the purpose of it, but he wouldn’t be misplaced in a fashion magazine. Only, I’d seen that in most of those fashion magazines, people were pouting like they’d just been told that their weekend had been cancelled. Lockwood was smiling far too much.

“I don’t know. And honestly, I don’t want to speculate too much. But it made the same sound like at Aickmere’s.”

“Perhaps it’s a Poltergeist, only so strong that it gives off an apparition. We might have been the first people to actually _see_ a Poltergeist. George was right, that is fascinating,” he speculated.

I snorted, “What, you’ve suddenly forgotten how scared you were and now you want more?”

“I wasn’t – okay, I _was_ scared,” he admitted with a frown, “but I also want to get to the bottom of this.”

I nodded. I supposed I was curious too. The buzzing sound that I almost felt more than heard – sometimes it was almost like it was calling me. I wanted to know what it was; what was causing it, but at the same time I was terrified of what I might find out.

I wanted to find the skull too. I was worried about it, I had to admit. I would never tell it of course, but I was afraid that they might have incinerated it already.

Lockwood supported me as we climbed the hill. I needed to be careful with that ankle. I wouldn’t be of any use if I hurt it again.

We stayed in the shadows under the cover of the trees and took in the building at the bottom of the meadow.

“huh,” Lockwood huffed, “I had sort of imagined it would be more…”

“Impressive?” I offered.

He nodded absently, “It’s almost…” he trailed off

“Tatty,” I finished.

“Security doesn’t even look that hard to crack. A fence, a couple of guards and that’s it. Do you see anything else?”

I squinted hard to try to see if there was anything to give us trouble, “Nope. Doesn’t even look like there are alarms on the doors,”

“What do you know? Maybe we’ll be lucky after all,” he grinned at me.

I groaned in exasperation, “why would you even say that Lockwood? Now everything will _definitely_ go wrong.”

He snorted, “Nothing new then, is it? We’ll manage, I’m sure.”

He nodded confidently and for a moment I didn’t know who he was trying to convince; me or himself.

We slowly made our way back to the village. I was so tired; I was almost dragging my feet on the crunching gravel.

When we reached the inn, I was almost asleep, standing up.

Lockwood turned immediately off the hall into the bar, but I decided that I didn’t care that Quill was sleeping in my bed. We'd done that before after all, and I needed to sleep. To hell with propriety. I'd even just borrow Holly’s bed. Hopefully, she wouldn’t mind.

To my surprise though, Holly’s bed was already taken. Mine was the untouched one.

I should be happy about being able to sleep in my own bed, but to see Quill in Holly’s bed, knowing that it was _her_ sheets that would smell like him made me sad.

Maybe it was for the best. They were probably better suited anyways.

I let myself drop down on my bed, only bothering to take off my boots.

...

_Quill:_

I woke up with a wrinkled nose and a headache. I generally had no problem with scented items, but the lavender-water that must have been sprayed on this pillow was so concentrated that it went directly into my sinuses and hammered at my brain.

I stretched and after that few seconds when it’s impossible to hear anything, I noticed that there was a rustling of sheets that I wasn’t making myself.

I looked at the other bed and was surprised to see Lucy sleeping there. She was sleeping on her stomach with her head turned towards me. Her hair stuck out in all sorts of directions. Half her face was squashed into the pillow and I sort of looked forward to seeing which sort of imprint would be left on her skin when she woke up.

I got up and quietly made the bed I’d left.

I walked closer to Lucy’s sleeping form. Some of her hair had moved in front of her face and it was getting in her mouth. With a small smile, I moved it gently behind her ear, not to wake her up. I wanted to kiss her on the forehead but decided against it. I needed to keep some sort of distance even if I was absolutely shit at it. That was why I’d chosen against sleeping in _her_ bed. I knew without a shadow of doubt that it would have backfired. Now, instead of her scent that made my heart clench, all I got was harsh lavender that made my head hurt and my eyes water.

Munro hadn’t been too happy about it. Especially after our little _talk_. But in the end, she respected my decision even if she thought it was a dumb one.

She and Kate were frighteningly similar.

I left the small room in order to find the bathroom. I still didn’t feel thoroughly clean after last night’s ordeal. Better than being eaten by a goat, but I still wouldn’t recommend getting stuck in a chimney. I missed Fittes House’s wellness program. I usually had an appointment first Friday of every month. We had passed that a while ago and I felt it. A steam bath would have done wonders for my skin. Instead, I had to make do with cold water in a chipped sink.

Was it really worth it?

I thought about this time spent with this team of misfits.

I thought about the chance Cubbins had given me at fighting ghosts again.

I thought about Tony and Lucy who were still alive and not haunting Vauxhall.

Worth it?

Several times over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment to let me know what you think!  
> Especially about Lucy's talk with Lockwood and Quills decision to try and back down.


	21. Haven't We Lost Enough?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks for the awesome comments! You guys are great and amazing and provide some extra motivation. I love you!

...

_Lucy_

Lunch was a relaxed affair. George had thankfully gotten a hold of some bread and cold cuts which was the expected dinner too.

Afterwards, we were sitting around, relaxing and drinking our preferred hot beverages before strategizing. It was nice to just _be_ for a moment. To enjoy the relative peace and quiet. Or as quiet as it could be with five people eating biscuits; the wholegrain ones that Quill and Holly were sharing were particularly crunchy and Lockwood, George and I had politely declined. Or well, Lockwood and I had been somewhat polite. George had stared at the packet in horror when it was offered to him, as if they really _were_ made of ashes from the crematorium.

The Skinner boy was once again hanging off the gate, swinging on it and making the whole thing rattle. Going by the looks on all our faces, it was highly likely that the inn would have a new Shining Boy by the time we left.

We were on our fourth biscuit rotation when we heard the roar of a large engine.

“Nice car,” Lockwood commented as he craned his neck to look out of the window.

I had my back turned so I couldn’t see it. Not that it would have mattered; I was rubbish at recognising things like car makes and models. I heard the opening and closing of a car door and the Skinner boy bickering with someone, though I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Then the door opened, letting in a gust of fresh spring air and into the bar came a relatively handsome man.

He grabbed one of the narrow chairs from a nearby table and sat down on it between Holly and I, spreading his legs so wide that he was forcing us to shift. By the time he'd finished getting comfortable, I only had one bum cheek on my chair.

“Now, which one of you little rascals, is Anthony Lockwood?”

It was Steve Rotwell himself. I recognised him from the carnival last year when he had stabbed a man with his sword and from the countless posters that hung all over the country, advertising the Rotwell Agency or whatever useless gadget they had come up with. His sword was a fancy looking thing that hung by his right side. I had the idle thought that he and Quill might have been using the same manufacturer. One big difference was that where Quills sword was a thin and elegant rapier, this was another sort, broader and more solid. As if it wasn’t meant for hunting ghosts with.

Lockwood cleared his throat and gave a thin-lipped smile, “that would be me, sir. We’ve met before,”

“Right, so we have,” he gave all of us a once-over, well, in Holly’s case a twice-over, “and I am of course acquainted with the lovely miss Munro,”

Holly looked deeply uncomfortable and I would have squeezed her hand. That would have put our hands directly in the middle part of Rotwell’s lap though, so I decided against it.

Besides, Lockwood seemed to have it covered. I could just make out his hand on her knee in the shadows under the table.

“So, what are Penelope Fittes' little lackeys doing in this town? Why did she send you here?”

“Well, you see, Lockwood and Co are an independent agency and so, no one is sending us anywhere. Furthermore, we happen to be a ghost hunting agency and it just so happens that this little town has quite a few ghosts,” Lockwood finished with a cold smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

I was close enough to Rotwell to see how his jar was working and how a vein near his temple was pulsing in anger.

“And why would a London agency be bothering with that? You know, my institute is just on the other side of that hill. You might not have known but it's generally considered bad form for an agency to encroach on another agency’s territory. With that in mind, I’m sure you _children_ will have the sense to take the first train home. If I’m not much mistaken, one is leaving in a couple hours’ time.”

Lockwood looked as if he were considering it, “Yeah, I don’t think so. You see, we’ve been invited to come here by the people of this town. As far as I’ve understood, your employees have already been notified by them but have chosen to do nothing. This is a dangerous cluster, Mr Rotwell and Lockwood and Co intends to see it through until every last ghost has been dealt with.”

Rotwell smiled coldly, “The problem is that you have a reputation, young Lockwood, of sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong.”

“Oh? I haven’t been made aware of any complaints. Is there perhaps anyone I can talk to about such claims?” Lockwood asked loftily.

“I doubt it. It’s widely accepted as common knowledge. But you see, at my institute, we’re terribly busy conducting important and _delicate_ research that ought not to be disturbed. I find myself concerned that you might be tempted to poke your nose into this and distract my scientists.”

Lockwood tilted his head, “I’m sorry, did you get any of that, Luce?”

I pursed my lips and shook my head, “Nope, not at all,”

“George?”

“Nothing, not a word made sense,” George shrugged.

Lockwood shrugged as well, “I’m a simple person, Mr Rotwell, I’m afraid you’ll have to speak more plainly than that. George’s brain is the biggest one among us,”

I heard Quill make the quietest scoff next to me,

“- and even he struggles to follow. What is it _exactly_ you don’t want me to do?” Lockwood leaned forward.

Rotwell fumed next to me. The vein at his temple throbbed harder and I had an increasing fear that he might jump at Lockwood. I could feel my body tensing slightly, preparing to block his sword if necessary.

He took a deep breath “You are here, to deal with the cluster?”

“We are,”

“That’s all?”

Lockwood shrugged carelessly, “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“That’s not an answer,” Rotwell sneered and leaned forward. He was practically vibrating with rage by now.

“It’s the only one you’re going to get, Mr Rotwell. Aldbury Castle is not your property. You do not have the authority to tell us to leave and if you have an issue with our presence, you can file a formal complaint with DEPRAC. Until they tell us to cease and desist, we’ll stay here and help these lovely people.”

Lockwood leaned back in his chair. He looked and sounded calm, but the small twitch at the corner of his smile told me that he was working hard at restraining himself. It was remarkable how well a teen was doing at holding back, compared to the middle-aged man at my side.

Rotwell stood slowly, never moving his scowl from Lockwood who sat, seemingly unaffected.

He walked around his chair and put a hand on the back of each of mine and Holly’s.

“You do not wish to cross me, _boy_. If you do so, you will regret it,”

I saw the man’s knuckles turn white out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t see his face anymore and I refused to give in to my curiosity to turn my head and look up. I wouldn’t show that I was affected, and I didn’t need the visual to go along with his menacing tone.

“Are you threatening me, Mr Rotwell?” Lockwood tilted his head in question.

A small, dark chuckle, “No, I’m not threatening _you_ ,”

The knuckles near my face turned whiter. Lockwood’s smile had fallen, and his jaw was working. The implication was clear. I felt Quill’s hand slowly sneak into mine and give it a tight squeeze. He didn’t let go.

“You’re a talented boy,” Rotwell commented pleasantly, now that he apparently had the upper hand, “but you’re too full of yourself. You’re over-reaching, and your ability doesn’t match your ambition. I hope you will heed my warning and not stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. If not, I hope you’re prepared to deal with the consequences.”

He ran a gloved finger down my cheek, and I had to bite my tongue not to shudder in revulsion. I gripped Quill’s hand harder and he squeezed back reassuringly.

Rotwell’s hand travelled down and gave my shoulder a single hard squeeze before letting go with a push and I could hear his boots across the wooden floor, going towards the exit.

“Happy ghost hunting, children,” he called out cheerfully before opening the door and leaving.

I didn’t take another breath until I heard the car engine starting.

Lockwood looked murderous as he held Holly who was crying silently. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to work for that man on a daily basis.

I, myself was angry. If not for Quill’s thumb which was drawing soothing circles on my knuckles, I might have gone after Rotwell myself.

“Well, that doesn’t at all seem like a man with something to hide,” George commented from near the window. His tone was so casual and sarcastic that it completely broke the tense atmosphere.

Quill snorted

Holly sniffled a little and came out of Lockwood’s embrace with a new steely look in her eyes, “let’s find out,”

Lockwood gave a decisive nod. “Let’s get planning then,”

Night had fallen and after a light meal, we were preparing ourselves. I almost hadn’t eaten anything due to nerves. Lockwood was practically jumping around in excitement, darting from place to place, checking maps, equipment, polishing his rapier, only to stop halfway in order to go find something else he might find useful. He’d changed the plan several times already and it was hard to keep up.

He was in the middle of explaining contingency plan G to me and my attention was waning.

Holly was in the kitchen and George and Quill were bickering about the pros and cons of balaclavas.

“We need to do _something_ ,” George argued, “You’re so pale we might not even need the torches because you’ll light up the entire place,”

“You’re one to speak, Cubbins; I’ve seen snowmen darker than you,”

“I might have an idea,” Holly offered as she came in, carrying tea. She left immediately to go upstairs. When she returned it was with a tub of shoe polish and a make-up sponge.

She got to work on George, despite his protests.

Quill looked at his tea with a nose wrinkle, probably wishing it were coffee, but he didn’t complain. “So, raiding fellow agencies. Is that something you lot do often?”

Lockwood shrugged, “It’s been known to happen. We stole from the Black Library at Fittes House once,” he smiled widely.

“ _What?_ No!” Quill exclaimed in disbelief, “when - how?”

“At that Anniversary Party,” George smirked.

I snorted, “And then we went directly on to raiding that warehouse and took a jump from the roof of it, directly into the Thames,”

Quill’s eyebrows flew high on his head as he stared at me.

“In _those shoes?_ ”

Silence ensued. I blinked slowly; a bit dumbfounded. How on earth did Quill remember what shoes I was wearing that night? _I_ didn’t remember what shoes I was wearing that night.

“I mean, all the women there had to have been wearing heels, it wasn’t like – you know, it was a general observation...” he trailed off, but the silence persisted.

“Awkward,” George whispered.

Lockwood cleared his throat, “Right. Are we just about ready?”

We all double checked our bags, belts and weapons. Holly finished covering all our faces except her own. Quill checked the goggles that were perched on his forehead and I tried not to scratch at the shoe polish on my nose.

...

 _Quill_ :

I was grateful when we went outside. Amidst the nerves, everyone seemed to have forgotten my little slip-up.

I heard a delicate throat-clearing behind me.

Well _almost_ everyone.

“I was wearing flats that evening if my memory serves me right,” Munro came up next to me, studying her nails with pursed lips.

I snorted “Bet you weren’t”

“Okay, I wasn’t, but I might have been. In fact, _several_ girls were.”

“What is your point, Munro?”

She huffed.

“God, you’re going to insist that I call you Holly, aren’t you,” I groaned.

She gave me a satisfied little smirk, “My point is that I see straight through you. And you might as well stop trying to fool yourself.”

I snorted bitterly, “I’m not fooling myself. I know exactly what I think and feel, but it doesn’t matter, because whatever you think should happen, isn’t happening.”

“I wasn’t talking about how _you_ feel, Quill.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mun – _Holly_ , let it go.” I rolled my eyes even if she wouldn’t see it clearly in the dark

“I just think Lucy needs someone who cares for her,” she told me quietly.

I scoffed “I’m obviously not the only one who cares,” I gestured at Lucy and Tony who were walking far up front, close together.

Holly sighed deeply, “I know. I just think that she needs someone who cares for her _and_ takes care of her.”

“That’s Lucy’s choice,” I shrugged.

She put a hand on my arm to stop me and poked me in the chest, “If you pretend not to care – if you pretend not to have an interest, you’re not respecting Lucy’s choice anymore. You’re limiting her options,” she poked me again.

I opened and closed my mouth several times while trying to think of what to say, but when she put it like that, I didn’t quite know how to justify my actions or lack thereof. I looked at Lucy and Tony again and sighed.

“And what about Tony then?” I started walking again

Holly made a small huff before following, “Lockwood has had ample opportunity, for Heaven’s sake, but he’s been pushing her away at every turn –“

“There’s a reason for that,”

She looked at me “Reasons might explain actions, but they don’t justify them,”

“Maybe _his_ reasons justify _my_ actions.”

“That sounds to me like a bad excuse from someone who’s scared.”

I sighed, “Look, Holly. I suppose I don’t think you’re the worst person in the world and I sure as hell like you more than I like Cubbins, but please stop digging into this. Nothing good will come of it.”

I increased my pace to catch up with the others and hopefully put an end to this conversation.

“Just think about it,” she half ordered over my shoulder as we reached the top of the hill.

The institute was at the bottom of the meadow. I'd never seen a prison before in my life, but it somehow gave off that vibe. A tall fence was surrounding the structure and floodlights were lighting up the entire area and a good part of the surroundings too.

That wasn’t even the biggest issue. The entire area was lit up by ghosts. Of course, they would only discover us in the light of them if they someone with Talent was with them or they had cool contraptions like mine, which wasn’t unlikely. We'd have to hurry.

Hurrying might be our only option anyways with that many Spirits. The cold had deepened but down there, we would be looking at sub-zero temperatures. I could feel the malaise and creeping fear even from here. A quick look from the others told me that they felt the same, but at the same time they all wore steely expressions of fierce determination.

We were absolutely crazy for doing this and not for the first time and probably not the last, I wondered exactly how often they found themselves in these types of situations.

“So, how fast can you run, Cubbins?”

“Compared to people who are used running away from danger on a regular basis, probably not that fast,”

“Right. There are a lot of ghosts, but luckily, they all look rather harmless. We should be able to zigzag around them.” Tony theorised.

“Zigzag? Really, Tony?”

Tony scoffed “Well what do you want to call it?”

“Never mind.”

“I thought so. As I’ve seen, there are two guards, but it seems like they largely rely on the ghosts for security. Lucy and I had a look earlier and it doesn’t look like there are any alarms on the doors. The guards are going as a team around the building which luckily gives us a large window. We’ll take the door on that corner,” he pointed to a door in a sort of recess, “that'll give us the best cover.”

“You do realise that we’re deviating from the plan already, right?” I felt the need to point out.

Tony huffed impatiently, “Well, no one is forcing you. Are you in or not?”

“Fine,” I grumbled, “Dying or getting arrested is just my idea of a good time anyway.”

He turned his head towards me with a large grin lighting up on his shoe polish covered face, “Admit that you love it,”

“I refuse to either confirm or deny,” I rolled my eyes.

“Right, if you’re quite finished, can we please get a move on?” Lucy hissed, “It’s bloody freezing and that buzzing noise is getting louder. It’s definitely coming from down there,”

I felt like offering to warm her up but didn’t.

“Okay. Wire-cutters ready, George?” Tony asked.

Cubbins waved the tool around a bit.

“Let’s go then.”

As it were, we _did_ zigzag in between the spirits. A few of them moved, but they seemed distracted as if they were waiting for something or keeping an eye. They all faced the facility.

Cubbins used the wire-cutters with a speed I’d never seen him use and in no time, we were in. We raced towards the recess and thankfully we weren’t discovered.

“I'll pick the lock,” Tony offered, but Holly pushed down the handle and the door opened easily.

“Or we could try that,” she commented.

Tony frowned and almost looked disappointed.

We all slipped quietly inside.

Where our black clothes and painted faces made us blend in with our surroundings outside; here, it made us stand out like a sore thumb.

I pulled the goggles down, so they hung around my neck and took it all in. Everything was white and clinical. Tables made of stainless steel ran along the walls, holding all sorts of scientific equipment. Silver-glasses with pulsing Sources, test tubes, Bunsen burners and beakers with different coloured liquids.

“Huh,” Cubbins made an impressed expression, “almost looks like my bedroom,”

As if I needed yet another reason not to step a foot in there.

“That won’t work though. Tried that already,” he pointed at some sort of contraption. “That one won’t work either. I tried it on the skull a while back.”

“But if this is a lab,” Holly pointed “where are the scientists?”

“Maybe they went home for the night?” I shrugged.

Lucy winced, “Nope, I bet they have something more interesting to do. In that direction,”

She pointed at a door on the far wall. It had to be leading deeper into the facility.

“Let’s go then,” Cubbins rubbed his hands together, excited at the prospect of looking at more experiments.

We took positions along the wall and Lucy opened the door just a crack.

“It’s clear,” she whispered.

By silent agreement we snuck down the hall that was revealed to us, in a single file before coming to an open door to the left.

I stuck my head in there quickly and what I saw was awe-inspiring.

“Take a look at this,” I breathed.

The others who had skipped the room, following Lucy, backtracked. We all went in there.

“It’s an armoury of sorts,” Tony mumbled “but look at this one!” he grinned. “This has to be the largest flare I’ve ever seen! What about you Quill? Have you ever seen anything like this?”

I shook my head slowly “We've used some pretty impressive stuff, but this is easily twice as big,”

“It’s as big as a coconut! It could take the roof off a building,” Cubbins commented.

I snorted, “Forget the roof; imagine using the crate. You could level an entire neighbourhood.”

Cubbins put it in his rucksack, and I shook my head. Lucy stood leaning against the wall near the door, rubbing her forehead. She was obviously in pain and I didn’t like it.

“They have guns here for iron and salt,” Holly pointed at something in a corner, but both Tony's and my attention had been captured by something else.

Tony grabbed it from the shelf “What the hell is this?”

I took it from him and tested its weight, “It’s like a shotgun but it’s been modified somehow,”

“Look at this,” Cubbins pointed at something, “it’s like small capsules,”

I took a closer look, “Wait, are those -"

“Bones,” Tony finished for me, holding one up. He was standing next to a barrel full of them.

“Guys?” Holly called out, “Recognise these?”

Lucy and Tony each drew in a sharp breath. Cubbins brow furrowed.

“Aren’t those the things from the carnival?”

“Well, that’s interesting…” Tony trailed off.

“But Mr Rotwell can’t be responsible for those attacks, can he? Those assassins tried to kill him too.” Holly pointed out.

“Can’t he?” Lucy questioned “As far as I remember, they never turned their guns at him. They did go for Penelope Fittes though. His greatest rival.”

I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t been there, “But didn’t he fight them or something? It was all over the papers.”

“Yes, it was. In fact, Rotwell came out looking quite well.” Tony speculated. “Penelope Fittes survived – because of us, not Rotwell, but he would always come out on top. Either by eliminating a rival or being lauded as a hero. He killed the attacker; that way there would be no loose ends.”

I frowned, “I knew that Rotwell hated Fittes, but this is next level insanity. I think we’ve seen enough; let’s get out of here, phone DEPRAC and get Barnes here now.”

Tony shook his head, “Not yet.”

“What, Tony? What more can you need? Look at all this – it’s crucial evidence!” I gestured at the entire room.

He huffed impatiently, “Well, what do you think happens when you call DEPRAC? Think they would come here, busting down doors and making arrests? No. They would move at a snail’s pace with lawyers and judges and warrants. By the time they had everything ready, all this would be gone. You said yourself that Rotwell have infested DEPRAC. Doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that they would try to slow the process if not sabotage it. And that’s even if anyone actually believes us,” he ranted.

I pinched the bridge of my nose “Well, what do you want to do then? Just waltz around here until you get caught?”

“The only place I want to waltz around in, is the central building. That’s where Lucy’s Talent has been leading us. That’s the main event. We’ve got to see what it is!”

“And you know who else is seeing it? The staff of this entire bloody building. It’s suicide, Tony – I thought we’d talked about this.”

Tony’s face darkened.

“Look – we’ll do something else. We’ll take one of these,” I grabbed one of the ghost bombs, “and we’ll take the first train to London and shove it in Barnes’ face. That way he can’t deny the evidence and getting a warrant should be easy as pie.”

Tony huffed impatiently and looked dangerously close to stomping his foot, “No! The stakes are too high – we’ve got to see this while we’ve got the opportunity. This is nothing. The important business is what’s going on in there and you know it!”

I was losing my already fragile patience and I stepped closer, “What I know Tony, is that you’re once again putting your ambition and curiosity over the safety of your team. Haven’t you lost enough? Haven’t _we_ lost enough?”

For a moment, I thought he was going to punch me, but then, like flicking a switch, he regained control.

“Fine. You take this and the shotgun and go to DEPRAC. I’m going in alone,”

I was _so_ close to dragging him out by his ear when an alarm suddenly sounded. A boom of psychic energy ran through all of us like a bomb had gone off. I felt it all the way in the very core of my being and it felt like the air was sucked out of my lungs.

We all scattered and flattened against the wall. Tony was closest to the door and he peeked out

“No!” I hissed and tried to grab his coat, but he was gone before I knew it.

Lucy was on the other side of the door and I could see the torn expression in her face. She shrugged in apology before running after him.

“Shit!”

I was about to follow, to protect those two idiots, to bring them back, to do _something_ , but at that moment another door burst open and two scientists came into the hall. I just had time to watch the bottom of Lucy’s boot disappear before I had to withdraw, not to blow our cover.

I banged the back of my head lightly against the wall. I looked over at Holly and Cubbins who both gave me a look of sympathy.

What the hell were we going to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry/not sorry for making Rotwell creepier than originally.   
> We'll make him pay for that. Or they will.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Don't hesitate to leave a comment or a kudo if you haven't.


	22. Don't Do It Unprotected

Lockwood slipped down the hall and into the next room. I looked across the doorway at Quill. His eyes were wide like he knew what I was about to do, but couldn’t quite believe it and to be honest, I had some issues wrapping my head around it myself. There was something else in the way he looked at me. It took me a moment to realise that it was fear. I knew we had often teased him for being a coward, but this was another sort of fear. Not the sort where you fear for yourself, but for someone else. He was silently begging me to stay put and I was close to doing so, but I couldn’t let Lockwood face whatever lay ahead alone.

I gave Quill a shrug as apology and slipped out after Lockwood.

In the next room, I found him flattening himself along the wall near the door and I slipped in next to him, trying to see what was going on.

His eyes widened in surprise, “What are you doing here?” he hissed.

I didn’t respond because in that moment, we heard shoe steps going down the hall towards us.

“How long do you think we’ve got?” a man’s voice asked conversationally.

A pause. I imagined someone was checking their watch, “Ten minutes, give or take,” a woman answered, “No one’s ever in there for more than half an hour and he's already been there for twenty minutes.”

“Better do this quickly then,”

They increased their pace. My heart was in my throat.

Lockwood looked at me pointedly when they had left.

“You should know by now, that I do what I want.” I whispered with a shrug.

His face split into a wide grin, “So you do. Fancy getting to the bottom of this?”

He looked so excited and I realised that no matter what he was saying about exposing Rotwell, _this_ was what it was all about for him. It was about the thrill of the chase - of taking risks. The higher stakes the better; the more dangerous the better. And maybe it was a bad idea, but no matter the risk and no matter the likelihood of getting killed, I would follow him, because I cared about him.

Anthony Lockwood was a dangerous person to love.

I swallowed but gave a single decisive nod.

Lockwood peeked discreetly into the hall.

“Clear,” he whispered, and we snuck out as silently as possible. We soon reached a door, completely made in iron. It was a psychic barrier like the one in Jessica’s room. It had to be heavy and I wondered what we might find on the other side.

It opened surprisingly smoothly, but the psychic wave of energy that hit us made me stagger. I had to lean against the doorframe for a few seconds.

When I recovered, we hurried into the room. Luckily, the door opened behind large crates and boxes for us to hide behind.

“These boxes are the same as the ones at the relic-market,” I told Lockwood.

“That confirms it, doesn’t it?” he mumbled distractedly.

I moved so that I could see what he was looking at and what I saw knocked the breath out of my lungs.

A dozen or so people were standing around in the middle of the room.

I saw Johnson among them with a stop-watch and his trusty clipboard, scribbling something down. Others just seemed to be standing around, waiting. Some of them wore lab-coats and others wore strange rubbery suits.

Rotwell was there too in all his arrogant glory and my hands were tickling with the desire to strangle him. He too was wearing a lab coat and his evil looking sword hung at his side. For a short moment, I wondered how many people’s blood had covered that blade over time. At the carnival he certainly hadn’t seemed inexperienced with ending someone’s life.

He was casually drinking from a thermos. No matter if it had been Lockwood’s true motivation or not, Steve Rotwell was going down. No one threatened either myself or the people I cared about and got away with it.

Everyone kept their eyes trained on the centre of the room where I was met with the strangest and most horrifying vision I had ever seen. It beat the Creeping Shadow by several miles.

The largest, thickest chain I had ever seen was laid out in a gigantic iron circle and inside it? Visitors. Dozens and dozens of Visitors. It was hard to explain. It was like a pulsing, swirling tornado of spiritual energy distorting reality. The sheer noise coming from it made it hard for me to breathe, and the vision of it made me nauseous.

The buzzing noise was higher than it had ever been, almost making my brain vibrate, the Visitors were moaning and howling together as one. A pole was hammered into the ground outside the circle and from it, another slightly smaller but still robust chain stretched in the air into the heart of the tornado of Spirits where it disappeared.

I grasped blindly for Lockwood’s hand. I needed him like I had needed him the night before, but my hand only met air.

I looked to my left side and realised with dread that I was all alone. I slowly crept along the boxes to try and locate him. When I eventually found him, he was close to being completely exposed.

He looked absolutely mesmerised. His eyes were wide as he stared at the iron circle and his mouth was slightly open.

At that moment it occurred to me that maybe I _had_ been wrong to leave. Maybe I would cause his death, but not because I would drive him to it. Maybe he would die because I wasn’t there to hold him back.

He was about to take a step forward, exposing himself fully and I grabbed his sleeve to pull him back. He jumped a little and blinked, as if he’d just woken up from a lovely dream.

“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed.

He looked startled and scrambled to dig his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on.

I shook my head at him and peeked at the circle again. The chain that led into it twitched slightly and the scientists moved around, making ready for something. The chain twitched again, and the movement reminded me of a fish caught on a line.

“What’s it all for?” I asked Lockwood in a whisper.

Lockwood wet his lips “I think someone’s in the circle,” He didn’t take his eyes away from there for even a second.

“Do you see them?” I tried to squint into the circle, but just looking directly at it made my eyes hurt.

“No, but you see, it’s all about the chain,” he pointed at the spot, where the scientists were moving around each other like ants on a hill.

“The chain provides a safe way in,”

I snorted a bit “That’s what you call safe?”

“-ish then,” he shrugged, “they’re probably wearing some form of protection.”

The door we had come through opened and the two scientists that had passed earlier returned. We were quick to duck for better cover.

The chain was twitching and shaking violently now. And the scientists stilled. It was as if they were all holding their breaths in anticipation. I certainly was.

“Someone’s coming through,” Lockwood whispered

The Spirits were moving even more furiously than before. Like something was upsetting them.

“The Spirits. They’re in pain,” I realised.

I heard a scoff beside me. “Again, with sympathy for ghosts, Lucy?”

I sighed heavily. “Have you thought, even for a second that maybe you’re the wrong one in this discussion?”

I turned my head to look at him despite the actions going on in front of us. He was already looking at me. His mouth was tight in anger or frustration. I couldn’t tell which.

“No,” was all he said before turning back to the scene before us.

A disturbance had started to appear. I wouldn’t call it a ripple, more like the shadows from a flickering fire on the opposite side of a wall. The reason for that soon appeared. The shadows densified, slowly taking a solid form.

It was large, that much was certain and the clearer the shape became, the more horrified I got. Because I realised what it was. It was the Creeping Shadow

At first it moved slowly as if it were moving through syrup, but the further it came, the faster it went. It had its hands on the chain, moving along it and when it reached the threshold, it staggered out. When it exited the circle, the buzzing noise died instantly.

I heard Lockwood make a choking sound next to me and I’m sure I made a whimper.

Blueish flames were licking up and down it, but oddly enough, it was covered in ice too. I'd never seen anything like it.

My heart was hammering away. Everything about it screamed “wrong" to me. It didn’t even have a face.

The people in the protective gear hosed the figure down and it hissed and steamed. Johnson stood, scribbling things on his clipboard and Rotwell was still looking on, casually sipping his tea.

The thing made a jarring noise, like the whining and groaning of a train stopping too fast.

It came to a stop a good few feet outside the circle and the scientists flittered around it. It wasn’t until they had pulled off a helmet to reveal a human head that I realised that it actually was a person. Lockwood had said so, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why anyone would want to step a foot in there.

With every part of the armour that was removed, a man was revealed, but he looked weak and sickly. He was pale and shivering, with hair wet with sweat. He wore a sort of one-piece underneath the armour and in spite of the protection it was supposed to provide, his body was steaming, but if it was from heat or the icy cold, I didn’t know.

I realised with horror that they already had a gurney ready which meant that they must have expected him to come out like this. They had purposely sent a man in there, knowing the state in which he would return.

The scientists rushed the man on the gurney through a set of double doors on the other side of the room. Johnson exchanged a few words with Rotwell before joining them.

Rotwell himself stood for a few moments alone while he finished his tea after which he joined the others.

“Do you have the spirit-cape, Luce?”

“Why?” I asked in suspicion.

“Because” he pulled his own out, “we _need_ to get a closer look at that circle, but I’d rather not do it unprotected,”

He bit his lower lip and looked at me with clear excitement and while it was adorable as ever, this really wasn’t the time. This was a time to be anxious or horrified. To figure out ways to escape, not ways to get a closer look.

I knew he wouldn’t be deterred though. I knew him enough by now, so with reluctance I dug out my spirit-cape and put it on.

We went closer, Lockwood in front of me.

The psychic noise from the circle made me dizzy and as we neared it, I got a closer look at the spirits. They we all powerful ones, which matched out theory about the DEPRAC regulation about Type Two spirits. We would send them to be incinerated and through back-roads they would end up here, in this circle. I recognised some of the Sources lying on the ground and every now and then I thought I saw a familiar face or two. I walked around the circle, purposefully looking for the skull. If they had it, it was bound to be in there somewhere.

_“Lucy!”_

I jerked up. Had I been a bunny, my ears would be twitching and standing up straight.

“It’s here,” I told Lockwood, “The skull is here!”

_“Well not where you are, I’m over here. To your left.”_

I looked around, searching for it

 _“Your_ other _left, you moron,”_

“Do you want to be saved or not?” I huffed

_“Alright, alright, keep your hair on. I’m here, on the trolley. With all the uh – I don’t even know what it is. Torture instruments maybe? They look fun. Want to try them out?”_

“Skull!” I groaned. Not even a minute’s contact and I was already exasperated by it. Why did I want to find it again?

I found the trolley in question and amongst pliers, scalpels, screwdrivers, a hammer and a round saw, I found the jar.

I drew in a breath “Why aren’t you in the circle?”

_“What, playing with the other kids?”_

I rolled my eyes.

_“It’s actually sort of insulting. They put all sorts of riff-raff in there, but me? The most powerful Spirit in their possession?”_

“Aren’t you glad though that you weren’t mixed with the uh – riff-raff?”

_“At least I would be out of this wretched jar”_

The Silver Glass was scratched, and the seal had several dents.

“I see it wasn’t for lack of trying”

_“It was an undignified process for all parts involved. Eventually they just gave up. Too much bother for them to set me free,”_

“They can’t have known how valuable you are.” I shrugged.

_“Why, Lucy – I didn’t know you cared!”_

I cleared my throat “I don’t, obviously, I just mean that you’re a rare Type Three.”

It made a small sound of disbelief but didn’t push.

“Lockwood! I found the skull, we really ought to get going,” I called quietly over my shoulder as I was stuffing the jar into my rucksack.

“Yeah. Just – in a minute, Luce,” was his distracted response.

I turned fully to face him.

_“Urgh. You brought wonder-boy I see. Let’s just leave him here.”_

Lockwood was standing near the chain, looking into the swirling vortex of Spirits. He’d taken his sunglasses off and was standing with a completely open expression, like he was in awe of it. He was staring at it longingly and when he distractedly put a gloved hand on the chain I’d had enough.

“Lockwood!” I whisper-yelled. “We need to go before they come back,” I put my rucksack down and jogged over to him, but he didn’t move.

_“Seriously Lucy, let’s just go. He can be a distraction so we can get away.”_

I heard noises coming from the hall where the scientists had gone, and I grabbed Lockwood’s arm hard.

Only then did he seem to startle awake “Wha –“

“We need to go!” I told him urgently.

Now noise was heard from the door we had come from, which left the open barn door. We would certainly be spotted, but there was a chance we wouldn’t get caught.

“Come on,” I gestured at the barn door.

Lockwood shook his head “No,”

“What do you mean – Lockwood!”

He kept his hand on the chain and stepped closer to the circle.

“We have the capes, Luce. We would be hidden in there,”

My eyes went as wide as saucers “Are you insane?”

He shrugged with a crooked smile.

This was too much. I couldn’t.

_“Just leave the idiot if he wants to die so badly,”_

The noises became louder. I had to make up my mind. Follow Lockwood or make a run for it. I couldn’t, so I stood, frozen.

“I – I can’t.”

Lockwood looked at me with hard determination and grabbed my hand. He pulled me with him into the circle. The last thing I heard before crossing the chain was doors opening and a snarky voice saying

_“See you on the other side then.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for getting to this point. You've read this far and I'm proud of you for managing to get through my ramblings.
> 
> The skull is back! Yay! I'm looking forward to write about its observations of what's happened since it's been gone.
> 
> Please, please, leave a comment to let me know what you think or just to say hi <3
> 
> (Right now, this has 666 hits. I can't make myself fall asleep until that number is changed)


	23. Alright There, Mate?

I tried to keep my head in the game, even though it was hard to focus.

“Right uh – we need to get word to DEPRAC. Holly, can you manage to get back to the inn to make the call? There’s a direct number to Barnes in my pack.”

She was uncharacteristically biting her nails, “I understand the need to alert DEPRAC, but I’d rather not do it while some of us are still here. If we’re here, we could get in trouble – “

I was about to argue that we already _were_ in trouble.

“– legally, I mean,” she added. “Technically _we are_ breaking and entering and to be honest, we don’t know which sort of permits Rotwell has. They might have a blanket permit for the purpose of research and development. If Rotwell has as great an influence at DEPRAC as you made it sound, it’s not unlikely,”

I frowned. Unfortunately, she might be right. “Any other ideas then? Cubbins?”

He started as if he wasn’t used to being asked.

“Oh! Um, well, I think that we ought to go after them.”

Holly nodded, still biting her nails and looking at the floor.

“Fine,” I sighed heavily, “But if I’m going to die, it’ll be with a gun in my hand.” I stood and started picking out weapons.

I didn’t hear the others moving so I looked over my shoulder and saw them staring at me with wide eyes.

“You too, you walnuts! Get up and come here. We all need to be as prepared as possible. We don’t know their defences. And we don’t know what sort of trouble those two have gotten themselves into,”

I opened my rucksack and started taking out things that weren’t necessary and couldn’t identify me, to make room before filling it to the brim with flares and ammunition. I took a few of the ghost bombs too on a whim.

“Let’s take the salt guns and leave the iron. We don’t know how much it scatters. If either of us gets hit by accident, salt is going to do less damage than iron shrapnel. Still going to hurt like the devil though.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw that Cubbins’ pasty face had gotten even paler, but he copied me and started emptying his rucksack. The gigantic flare took up most of the space, and he seemed sad to take it out.

“Let’s attach this to your belt if you’re absolutely set on keeping it,” I took it from him and put it, so it was within reach, but out of the way.

He grabbed my arm as I was about to move away.

“I didn’t tell Lockwood.”

At first, I didn’t know what he meant, but I caught on quickly.

“Considering that my face is still intact, I figured as much. Didn’t take you for someone who ran with gossip anyway,” I snorted.

“Tell Lockwood what?” Holly asked from around the corner.

“ _Nothing!”_ I stressed, at the same time as Cubbins said, “That Kipps kissed Lucy yesterday.”

Holly stuck her head out from behind the shelves and grinned obnoxiously at me. I knew my face had turned bright pink.

I sighed heavily and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Were we going to take down some evil scientists or what?”

That seemed to do the trick.

“Holly, here,” I gave her one of the salt guns, “can you use one of these?”

“Cubbins?” I held one out for him.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll stick to what I know,” he patted his tool belt which he’d kitted out with an abnormal and frankly disturbing amount of flares. He’d taken an extra belt and improvised a holster over his shoulder, across his chest with even more flares.

“Just be careful, yeah? We don’t want any friendly fire.”

“Define friendly,” Cubbins lifted an eyebrow in my direction.

I gave him a beautiful view of my middle finger

Another surge of psychic energy flooded us, and I had to grab a table for support. The others were staggering too.

“That’s our cue, yes?” I remarked.

Their senses were much keener than mine, so it had affected them more, but they nodded and stood up straighter.

We moved towards the door and after a quick check, we snuck down the hall in a single file with me in front.

I turned the way I had seen Lucy go and soon we were confronted with an iron door.

“This is it,” Cubbins announced unnecessarily.

I nodded and looked at them seriously. “I’m going to open the door but brace yourselves. If they need this sort of protection, it’s probably because something heavy is going on.”

I pushed against the door, expecting it to be heavy, but it slipped open without issue.

I felt the heavy pressure from the heavy psychic onslaught. It was as it someone was pressing my chest, making it difficult to breathe. The others were worse off. Cubbins supported himself against the wall and Holly looked like she was about to throw up.

They recovered quickly enough though, and we moved forward. I wanted to try for stealth, but Cubbins knocked over a box of Silver Glass jars.

I passed the boxes just in time to see another horrifying vision. In the middle of the room was an iron circle. With Visitors in it. It was so dense with Visitors that I could see them even without the goggles. An eerie wind seemed to blow through the other-light like a bright, glowing tornado.

And just outside it? Tony reaching his hand out to Lucy. They were both wearing the sort of feathery cape Tony had been wearing at Vauxhall Station. Lucy was looking at him with wide eyes, shaking her head, obviously frightened.

Then another door opened on the other side of the room, which apparently prompted Tony to grab Lucy’s hand, pulling her with him into the circle of Visitors

I stopped completely.

I went numb.

I barely registered it when Cubbins pushed his way past me. The sound of the flares he was throwing was dulled.

All I saw was Tony going into that circle.

Tony pulling Lucy with him into that circle.

I knew that Tony had his issues and a certain sort of death wish. I knew that he occasionally put other people in danger with his recklessness, but I had never once imagined that he would kill himself on purpose much less take anyone down with him. Especially not Lucy.

Holly pulled me down behind a crate. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she wiped at them furiously.

“Did you see...” I trailed off. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else. My voice sounded small, but I didn’t care.

It wasn’t until she gently wiped my cheeks for me that I realised that I was crying too.

She nodded; her lips pressed into a line as she tried to compose herself.

“We need to – we need to get it together,” she interrupted to take a shaking breath. “We have to fight. We have to help George,”

I nodded and took some big gulping breaths before looking over the crate.

What I saw made me blink several times in disbelief.

Cubbins had apparently charged the Rotwell people singlehandedly. It was probably good that the majority of them were scientists and not used to fighting or else he'd have been dead a long time ago.

It was an impressive sight, nonetheless.

He was throwing flares left, right and centre without any sort of pattern, making people scatter in panic.

A man was standing near the chain Tony and Lucy had followed into the circle. He was wearing some sort of armour and I wondered what that was about. It seemed too impractical to fight in.

I couldn’t see Rotwell anywhere, but I did see a fellow rushing towards a great big button. I figured that it would be bad for us if he reached it, so I turned the salt gun on him.

With a loud noise, it got him in the arm. Salt was raining down everywhere around the man. I was impressed with the accuracy.

The man cried out in pain and cradled his arm, hissing and cursing. He sat down on the ground.

I took in the room, trying to figure out what to do.

“Cover me? I’m going over there,” I pointed at a desk where a man in a lab coat was busy throwing papers into a bag. We needed that bag.

I made a run for it. There was smoke in the air from the flares Cubbins had been throwing around. He threw one just as I passed, and I felt the heat and heard the fizzle near my right ear

“Friendly fire for fuck’s sake, Cubbins!” I yelled at him, but I doubt he heard me.

I shot the man who was packing the papers in the back. Probably not the best sportsmanship, but at that moment I didn’t care about being fair.

He went down with a yelp when I got him right between the shoulder blades.

I reached the table. A quick look told me that the papers were a mix of notes and schematics. Probably to the setup they had. I grabbed the bag and slung it over my shoulder. Then I looked down to the left and saw another bag that made me stop short.

I knew that bag. The flap was open, revealing an old jar with the Fittes logo proudly stamped at the seal. A seal that someone had clearly tried to open.

I wanted to get to it, but apparently the scientists had decided that it was time to fight back.

A piece of iron hit me over one eyebrow. Someone had started trying to put out the fires with what seemed to be a gigantic hose, spraying saltwater.

I saw Holly having trouble. Someone was about to turn a similar hose on her, and I cried out in warning,

“Holly!”

She turned around, just in time to shoot the guy point blank in the chest. I saw blood staining the white lab coat, but she looked unrepentant. Good.

Cubbins was still throwing around flares and I watched as one of them soared elegantly through the air to land in a box that immediately caught fire. Unfortunately, it was the box I’d planned to seek cover behind.

I pressed myself up against the wall instead. I wiped my face with a hand which was then covered with leftover boot polish and blood.

I saw someone trying to take down Cubbins and got the perpetrator with a well-placed shot from the salt gun. The impact made the guy crumble and sent a shower of salt raining over Cubbins who ducked and looked at me accusingly. I gestured at the man lying on the ground beside him and shrugged.

The whole exchange didn’t last more than a second, but while I was distracted, the man I’d previously shot in the arm, recovered enough to get up and hit the large button.

A loud klaxon sounded, and I had no doubt that it was going off in the entire building. I had no idea how many people were there, but the scientists would soon have reinforcements and presumably not all of them would be so easy to take down.

I exchanged a look with Holly. We needed to either fight or make a run for it, but just like me, she seemed to want to see this through to the end. I didn’t really need to consult Cubbins. Even if I’d wanted to run, he would have stayed. He was beyond caring.

I moved to stand near the barn door, certain that the two guards would come through there and sure enough, a guard came, but he was alone.

I shot him in the stomach, but other than staggering a bit, he was barely fazed. Unlike the scientists he was wearing a protective vest.

At that moment, I was grabbed from behind.

I'd forgotten about the other guard.

He had me in a chokehold and given that he was taller than me, I was forced to stand on my toes.

The other guard was coming at me.

I tried to kick out, but I couldn’t

Then something exploded next to my head and salt covered me.

I winced and hissed when some stray grains of salt dug into my skin, but I was largely protected by the guard’s arm.

An arm that loosened.

I saw Holly standing not far away, looking ferocious.

Unlike me who had shot the other guy frontally, she had aimed for this one’s armpit.

I grinned at her, but the merriment soon came to an end, when more people entered the room, led by Rotwell himself.

When he saw the mayhem we had created, he pulled his sword. It wasn’t the standard rapier. It almost reminded me of the broadsword that the Scots were using.

Those things were heavy as hell though, which could hopefully be used to our advantage. Heavy usually meant slow, but I’d rather not have him close enough to find out.

Before I could shoot the salt gun, however, Cubbins got in my way and threw a flare at Rotwell. I have no idea how he did it though, but for some reason, rather than going forward to hit Rotwell, the flare went flying backwards and exploded just in front of me. Magnesium burned everywhere and I had to jump to the side.

The guard that had been coming at me before took advantage.

He came running at me with his head down. I didn’t have space to step to the side and he rammed into me, knocking me over. I just had time to raise my arms, otherwise I would most certainly have had a concussion.

The guy was on top of me and I was quick to knee him in the groin and roll him over into the magnesium fire.

I lifted my head just in time to watch Holly shoot three consecutive shots at Rotwell with her salt gun. Unfortunately, she was too far away to do any severe damage, but it had to hurt and boy, did he look pissed off.

More and more boxes and crates had started to catch fire and some of them were precariously close to Lucy’s bag. I couldn’t let her things burn. Especially not her strange friend that she had searched for, for so long. Even if she was –

I couldn’t finish that sentence, even as a thought.

I ran across the room to snatch up the bag.

“Alright there, mate?” I asked and ran to cover with it. I got a pulse of green light as response. Nifty.

I put it down near the wall, away from the fighting and away from any flammable objects.

I took a look around to get an overview.

Cubbins was still running amok with the flares. He had three scientists pinned down behind crates. They were obviously too scared to move. Two scientists and both guards were down even though one of the guards looked like he was recovering fast.

The armoured fellow had gotten his helmet on and was moving slowly across the room. Two people in rubber suits were using hoses, one to put out fires and one of them was kept busy by Holly.

Rotwell himself was trying to get to Cubbins but had to jump back every few feet to avoid being barbequed.

I thought he was getting a bit too close for comfort, so I took a salt bomb and threw it at him. He fell on his arse and I enjoyed the _clang_ of his sword on the ground.

The guard that Holly had shot in the armpit had fully recovered and tried to take a sweep at my feet, but I’d been prepared, and I jumped.

I tried to kick him, but he was too fast for me and moved out of my reach.

He tried to take a swing at me, but it was a stupid move because for a man who was supposed to be providing security, he was remarkably bad at defence. He lifted his elbow as he tried to hit me, exposing his side where Holly had gotten him before. I hit him there as hard as I could, and he went down.

At that point, Holly gave a small shriek and I saw that the armoured man had reached her position and was hammering through the crates with his iron fists. He had moved some of the boxes, so she was pinned down. Her only option would have been to go into that circle.

I left the bag with the skull where I’d put it down and moved closer before throwing some well-placed salt bombs at the robot. He fell backwards and even if he appeared uninjured, it seemed that he couldn’t get back up again. I certainly wasn’t about to help him.

I exchanged a nod with her before moving on towards one of the scientists with a hose but had to turn around when I heard Holly scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt so bad for Kipps when I wrote this.  
> Another thing I've been thinking is that he doesn't really have a relationship with the Skull in the same way as the others do. So I'm looking forward to explore that a bit more.  
> Anyway, as always, thank you so much for keeping up with this monstrosity of a story.  
> I would love if you left a small comment, especially what you think about Kipps and the Skull - and of course what you generally thought about the chapter.  
> I love you guys <3


	24. The Chain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the chapter title also suggests, I recommend listening to "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac. One of my absolute favourite songs and one that I naturally find super appropriate for this part.

Going through the circle was an odd feeling. I had expected to be buffeted by winds or ripped to pieces. I had expected the psychic noise to tear my mind apart, but it was strangely calm on the inside. Like the eye of a hurricane.

To begin with, I had kept my eyes firmly shut. My left glove was holding tight onto the chain. Then something touched the other one.

“You can open your eyes, Lucy,”

It was Lockwood. He was talking gently, like he was trying to calm me down before I even had the chance to yell at him.

I stubbornly squeezed my eyes more shut. I wanted to be angry and I knew that as soon as I looked at that pretty face of his, all that anger would disappear.

He sighed softly, “I’m sorry, Luce. I had to-“

“You had no right-“

“I know. But we had to do something or else we would have gotten caught. You stopped at the threshold,”

My shoulders slumped in defeat, “Fine, but you can’t exactly compare a circle filled to the brim with Visitors to a regular haunted house. Especially when there was another option!”

I slowly opened my eyes and Lockwood was standing so close to me that he filled my entire vision.

He wore a slightly apologetic smile, but it was diluted by the excitement in his eyes that didn’t stay on my face but rather darted around whatever was going on around us.

I turned around a bit to see better.

We were standing in a swirling vortex of plasm. I could see figures of spirits moving around, some of them greedily grasping out for us. I tightened my grip on the chain and moved a bit closer to it.

It was bitingly cold in the circle and frost was starting to build up on my gloves. Numbness was starting to set in. What would happen if I lost my grip on the chain? Would the Visitors get me?

Even though Lockwood had told me it worked, I was surprised by the effects of the spirit-cape. I could hear the crackling of frost on the outer side of it whenever I moved my head, but the inside felt warm and cosy. Like the times I would hang the blanket in front of the fireplace on cold winter nights so it would be nice and toasty when I curled up in the armchair with whatever spy novel I’d gotten my hands on.

“We’ll just stay in here long enough for them to do whatever they need to do and then we’ll slip right out,”

“But in what condition, Lockwood? You saw that man! If we end up the same way, how are we even going to make it back to the inn?”

He opened his mouth and shut it again several times. It was obvious that he’d forgotten about that little detail,

“I’m just so tired, Lockwood,” I felt warm tears starting to pool in my eyes, “I’m so tired of your recklessness and – and your secrets,” I continued “You pulled me in here, but in the end I would probably have followed you anyway. Because I lo – I care about you,”

The tears fell and froze into salty pearls before they even reached the ground.

Lockwood stared at me with wide eyes and I almost couldn’t continue.

“I can’t keep doing this,” I swallowed hard, “At this rate none of us will make it to see twenty.”

“You – you want to stop being an agent?” he asked, his head cocked in confusion.

I took a deep breath, trying to muster up all the patience I had, which had always been in extremely limited supply .

“I want you to stop hiding things,”

He opened his mouth in protest, but I lifted my free hand to stop him.

“I want you to trust me – trust _us_ , with information and plans. And more than anything, I want you to stop putting yourself in unnecessary danger. It’s hurting everyone around you. Even Quill. _Especially_ Quill, probably.”

Lockwood scoffed, “Quill doesn’t ca-"

“If you’re going to say that Quill doesn’t care about you, so help me, I will slap you in the face,” I warned him with a slight growl.

He frowned and I imagined that he would have crossed his arms in front of him if he’d been able to let go of the chain.

“What did he tell you?”

“A lot,” I sighed heavily, “And at the same time not all that much. He told me about what happened after Jessica died,”

Lockwood’s mouth tightened in anger, “He had no right to do that,”

“Didn’t he? It’s just as much his trauma as it’s yours,” I argued.

His jaw tightened, “It’s not the same.”

His rising anger made the Visitors swirl around faster, but my attention was caught by something else.

“Wait, did you feel that?”

His brows furrowed but now more in confusion than anger.

“The chain. Did you move it?” I asked

He shook his head.

Then I felt the chain twitching again.

I looked at Lockwood in panic, “They’re sending someone else in, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll have to make a run for it, but we have to go now,”

I nodded, “Let’s go then,”

I didn’t bother with a countdown. I just ran along the chain as fast as I could. I closed my eyes as we passed through the cloud of visitors to the other side.

“Are you sure you felt the chain, Luce?” Lockwood asked doubtfully behind me.

I stopped running when I realised that his voice and my own boots were the only things I heard.

I opened my eyes and turned around and got very confused.

“I – Where is everyone?”

Lockwood looked around, but no one was there. It was all empty and the lights were off.

“But I could have sworn I felt…” I trailed off.

“Maybe they went home for the night,” Lockwood shrugged,

I frowned and looked around. Something wasn’t right. I looked near the trolley where I'd left my rucksack.

“Great. The Skull is gone. Again,”

Lockwood scratched his neck, “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

I snorted, “You _so_ aren’t,”

He gave me a sheepish sort of grin, “Okay, maybe I’m not exactly missing the thing, but I _will_ help you get it back.”

“Let’s just get back to the inn,”

We went to the barn door and even though everything was silent, we still checked carefully, not to get caught by the guards.

We snuck around the building to get close to the hole in the fence George had made earlier.

The grass was so cold it snapped when I walked in it.

Something was... off.

I couldn’t put a finger on it.

“Was it this cold last night?” I wondered out loud.

“I can’t remember. We were a bit busy,”

I nodded absently and the feathers on the cape crackled with the frost covering them. It was still warm enough underneath it, so I didn’t take it off.

“Lockwood, how are we even seeing anything?” I asked when I noticed that even the floodlights were out.

“Don’t be daft, we could see fine by the moonlight when we came here.”

I tried to spot the moon, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even see any clouds. Or stars for that matter.

I suddenly felt a need to see my own shadow, but a thick layer of mist was covering the ground completely, making it impossible to see.

“Careful where you step,”

Lockwood didn’t respond. He only trudged on with a frown on his face.

We walked for quite a while in silence.

“I don’t know what to do about Quill.” Lockwood finally confessed.

I didn’t speak, I just waited for him to continue.

“Part of me misses him,” he admitted, “but a part of me still hates him,”

“Is it really worth it? All that hatred?”

He frowned a bit, “I don’t – I don’t know,”

“He misses you too, by the way. I can tell,”

Lockwood sighed heavily, “It’s just almost become a habit to hate him and be angry with him. And then along came you.”

He grabbed my hand, making me stop.

“Along came you. Beautiful, amazing Lucy. And unfortunately, we both saw how incredible you are.”

I blinked and for several moments, I felt as if my heart had stopped entirely.

He took my other hand and looked into my eyes. He bit his lower lip like he was trying to find the right words.

“What I mean to say is that you’re an absolutely, incomparably exceptional girl and it’s hard not to want you for oneself.”

I swallowed hard, “I uh – I don’t know what to say to that. Except, Quill hasn’t been trying to get me for himself. He’s been pushing me towards you,” I looked at the ground, now feeling deeply uncomfortable about the conversation.

“He kissed me last night though,” I confessed, “And I almost kissed him this morning.”

I couldn’t look at his face. Couldn’t bear seeing whether he was angry, sad or disappointed. Either option was equally horrible, but with a finger under my chin, he forced me to look up,

“I don’t know how I feel about it though,” I told him, and my breath hitched “because I have feelings for you too and I’ve had them for quite some time. Quill made me realise that.”

Lockwood looked at me with a sad smile.

“It’s okay, Luce. If anything, it’s my own fault. I should have told you about my own feelings much sooner, but I was confused too. About Holly I mean,”

I gave him a crooked smile. I'd been right all along.

“I found out a while ago that I’m really not her uh – type and then it sort of... fizzled out.”

I nodded and gave him my input; “I think it might be better if we put whatever this,” I pointed between us, “is and whatever he and I have on ice so you two can figure out things between you. That way I’m also going to have time to find out what the hell I want,” I smiled ruefully.

He gently pulled me closer with both hands and careful, not to push the hood of the spirit-cape down, he put his hand on my cheek and slid it to the back of my head.

He leaned down and slowly pressed his lips against mine. His mouth was warm, and the kiss was slow and gentle.

It was sweet, comfortable and somehow familiar as if we had done this a thousand times.

But even as we stood there, kissing under the starless sky, I knew that the decision was right because even though the kisses were vastly different, the feelings they evoked in me were too hard to differentiate between.

When we came apart, we were both smiling.

“I think that I'd like that,” he nodded, almost to himself.

He rubbed his neck and we walked on, hand in hand, in silence.

We reached the forest and easily found the path we had followed, but something was bothering me. Lockwood too.

“Lucy, I know that it’s cold and it might be frozen, but shouldn’t the creek be running about here?”

I only nodded and the feathers crunched. But that was all I heard. No sound of water running in the stream.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Lockwood,”

We separated to look for it and he turned on his torch to let it shine through the mist.

“Lucy?” his voice had a shaky quality to which really set me on edge,

“Is it frozen?” I walked closer to him.

“It isn’t _there_.”

“So, we’re in the wrong spot,” I shrugged.

Lockwood shook his head, “Look at the ground. It was _supposed_ to be here, but there’s no water. It’s completely dry,”

I looked and saw that he was right. I could see exactly where the small creek should have been. The indent in the ground, but there was no water in sight. Not a drop. I suddenly felt a bit colder and drew the cape around me a bit tighter.

“Let’s just go find the others,” I swallowed, “they’re bound to be back at the inn by now,”

“Right,”

I tried hard to convince myself that everything was fine, and I failed miserably.

We passed the church and the graveyard, and I got the uneasy feeling that someone was keeping an eye on us.

“What if the Rotwell people noticed us before we went in the circle, and they’re waiting for us at the inn?”

Lockwood frowned, “Can’t think like that, Luce.”

“But shouldn’t we have a plan? What if they have the others?”

“Then we’ll improvise,”

His mouth was a hard line and he looked at me as if daring me to contradict him. I didn’t.

We reached the village and as if the coldness outside the cape wasn’t enough, I felt a cold pit of dread forming in my stomach.

“Lockwood, why are all the lights off?” I hated that my voice was shaking.

“They’re not just off, Lucy. Look. See anything missing?”

He pointed at a place next to the church.

“The Ghost Lamp,” I breathed.

Without agreeing to, we took off towards the inn in a run.

It was empty.

Not only empty, but it also looked abandoned. The door was open, and I took a short peek inside.

The mess we had made when George removed the flagstones to get to the Shining Boy, had been mended.

No. It was as if it had never been broken in the first place.

That cold pit in my stomach was starting to bubble into a panic, but I did my best to beat it down.

Everything inside me screamed; wrong, wrong, wrong!

As soon as we stepped out, we took a look around to see what else had changed.

“Why are all these people out and about? It’s the middle of the night,” Lockwood wondered out loud.

At first, I didn’t understand what he meant, but then I saw them. People coming out of their houses, adults as well as children.

“They’re not exactly dressed for the weather either,” I noticed when I saw women in frilly dresses and very few wearing a coat. It seemed silly when I saw that frost had built up so much on Lockwood that it looked as if he were steaming. No. It almost looked like he was slowly disintegrating.

I touched his arm, but all he said was, “I know.”

He was keeping a sharp eye on the people around us.

They were coming from everywhere. Out of almost every house, and they were all walking towards us.

“Lucy,” Lockwood started while slowly pulling me back by the arm, “if you were to describe these people, how close do you think you would come to the description of the visitors we got from the people living in this town?”

At the word ‘living' it was almost as if a ripple went through the crowd coming towards us.

“We came out on the wrong side,” I whispered.

Lockwood swallowed, “And how do we get back on the right one?”

“Run,” I whispered and grabbed his hand. I pulled him with me the way we came from.

I looked over my shoulder and saw that the people in the village were following us, but the way they did so, only served to scare me more.

They walked as if they were taking a relaxed trip around the green.

Like they were sure that no matter how fast we were going, they would catch us.

We tore past the church where I saw the man standing in the tower, as if he were still waiting to jump. His head followed us as we passed. I saw a few figures in between the trees as well, all walking ever so casually.

Lockwood’s legs were longer than mine and he soon took the front. He almost stumbled over a root as we passed through the forest but managed to right himself at the last minute.

We climbed up the small hill that marked the edge of the forest and I made the mistake of looking back. The people might have looked like they were walking casually, but they were still moving at least as fast as we were.

“We need to get back to the institute,” I told him in between heavy breaths of exertion.

He only nodded as a response.

We reached the top of the hill, but as we were about to clear the forest and head into the freedom of the meadow, something happened to me.

Something almost choked me, and I felt it snap near my throat. Then, it felt as if my spine hand been replaced by a lance of ice. I crumpled to the ground and I heard a scream that I much too late realised was my own.

I had let go of Lockwood’s hand and fell to my knees on the hard, frozen ground.

I couldn’t breathe and I felt that I was being stabbed with icicles a thousand times.

“Lucy!” I heard Lockwood.

I felt something warm press against me and felt his arms lift me up,

“Come on, Luce. We have to keep going, yeah?”

I nodded weakly. I faintly registered him taking my Spirit-cape from off the bush it had snagged on.

He pulled his own tight around us both.

“Is this okay? Am I too close?”

“It’s fine, Lockwood. Let’s just stay alive,” I gasped.

We huddled together under the cape and moved carefully across the meadow. I didn’t look back, but I could _feel_ the spirits in our wake and more of them gathering by the second.

We reached the fence and in a surprisingly smooth motion, we managed to move through the hole in the fence together and made it through the barn doors back to the circle.

“Wait, where’s the chain?”

I looked and moved around as much as the other body under the cape could allow me to.

“Where’s the chain, Lockwood?” I screamed.

His only response was a tightening of his arms around me.

But then I saw something odd. A spirit that I hadn’t noticed previously.

It was a young man leaning against the wall. He was thin and his hair was messy. His clothes were old fashioned and torn in a few places, but the glint of mischief in his eye was so alive, as opposed to the other spirits here.

The smirk on his face was so eerily familiar that it almost made me smile despite our situation. He pointed to a place behind me.

There it was. The post with the chain.

I pointed it out to Lockwood. Together we reached it and followed it.

Before we entered the circle, I looked back at the boy. His smile widened and he winked at me

 _‘See you on the other side_ ’ he mouthed at me before disappearing.

With every step we took, energy seemed to drain from me.

I had heard stories of people who stayed alive and conscious exactly long enough for the ambulance to arrive and then when they know they’re safe, the body powers down.

That’s how it felt. Like all the muscles in my body were melting with each step I took.

I stopped Lockwood halfway through the circle,

“What if they’re there? Rotwell’s people?”

He looked just as drained as I felt.

“We’ll run if we must, and if they catch us then I suppose they catch us. At least we won’t be – we won’t be back there anymore,”

That was good enough for me too.

When we came through the circle, I collapsed on the floor and Lockwood came down beside me. I tried to take a large breath. I wanted to feel normal air after the staleness of wherever we had been, but all I got was acrid smoke from flares.

I coughed. What on earth?

 _“There you are. Took you long enough,”_ A familiar voice sounded in my ear.

I immediately looked to the trolley and panic gripped me when I realised that the entire corner where I left the skull was aflame.

“What the…” I heard Lockwood whisper next to me.

_“Yup. You might wanna join in before these idiots take all the credit,”_

“What idiots?” I groaned

The skull snorted _“Your friends. Who else would be stupid enough to come for you?”_

Lockwood got up and handed me my spirit-cape back. He folded his own and put it in his rucksack.

I looked around, taking it all in.

Holly constantly surprised me. With each crisis we found ourselves in, it seemed as if her level of scruffiness reached new heights.

Quill looked positively ferocious as he took down a man in armour. I swallowed hard and had to remind myself of the agreement I’d made with Lockwood. It was all I could do, not to run and seek comfort in his arms.

George was surprisingly the most impressive though.

He was holding off Rotwell with a snarl. He looked absolutely feral. I turned my head to look at Lockwood who was lying next to me, open-mouthed.

Someone was missing though.

“Skull, where are you?”

_“At the wall. I’d wave at you, but y’know.”_

I looked along the wall and spotted my rucksack almost at the opposite side of the room from where I’d left it.

“How did you get over there?”

_“I got a lift from that degenerate beanstalk,”_

It took me a few moments to realise who he meant.

“Don’t worry, I’ll thank him from you,” I told the skull with a smile

_“You wouldn’t dare,”_

I only deigned to respond with a snort.

“We better join them,” Lockwood pointed out.

I nodded and got up.

I moved towards Holly and poked her on the shoulder, making her scream directly into my ear.

I winced, “Happy to see you too, Holly,”

I looked up and locked eyes with Quill. He was just about to come over, but before he could, he was intercepted by Lockwood.

They exchanged some words that looked a bit angry, but then Quill pulled Lockwood in for a tight hug.

It made me smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you guys think about the decision - not to mention the kiss?  
> I'm going to focus a bit more on the Lockwood-Kipps connection. It's important for the rest of my story which is going to take a turn soon.
> 
> Please leave a comment after the beep. It really makes my day.
> 
> That feeling when the notification e-mail pops up on my screen - there's really nothing like it.
> 
> I love you guys!


	25. In the Name of Science

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we begin, I just wanted to clarify from the previous chapter. Lockwood and Holly haven't been together in any way, shape or form. Nor has he really been in love with her. He's just had a small crush on her - nothing too serious, just enough to confuse a teenage boy.
> 
> Without further ado; chapter 25:

I turned back towards Holly, ready to jump to her aid, but what I saw knocked the breath out of me.

Lucy was there. Next to Holly. I saw her with my own eyes, but I didn’t understand it. It didn’t register properly in my brain.

I was about to go to her when someone else filled my vision.

Tony with his stupid grin.

I scowled at him and enjoyed watching him cower a little. The blood and soot on my face probably added to the effect for which I was grateful.

I punched him none too gently on the shoulder just to make sure he was real and then I grabbed him tightly by the collar.

“You are _by far_ the most aggravating boy I have _ever_ met, and you wouldn’t believe the sheer number of shitheads I’ve had to deal with over the years.” I snarled at him with a voice shaking with barely contained fury and I privately took joy in the way his eyes widened. He almost looked five years old again, caught peeing in his mum’s flower vase.

“Come here, you stupid idiot,” I grumbled eventually and pulled him in for a tight hug.

“I don’t know what the hell you were doing but If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I will kill you myself. I won’t use my rapier either. Is that understood?” I mumbled into his shoulder and I felt him nodding.

We let go and he looked at me with a small, teasing smile.

“What, you still have that scythe of yours lying around?”

“Don’t mock the scythe, Tony. It’s an heirloom. Besides, you’re bound to have some weirder shit at your house. Don’t forget I knew your parents.”

He conceded my point with a tilt of his head and a slight grimace.

“So, what’s all this then?” he asked conversationally.

“What does it look like?”

He turned that irritatingly gleeful smile towards me, “Destruction of property?”

“Sure, we can call it that,” I shrugged and threw a salt bomb at a nearby scientist, “You should probably go tell Cubbins you’re alive, but be careful because he doesn’t know friend from foe at the moment. You’ll end up with a flare in your nose,”

He was about to run, but I grabbed his arm before he could go, “Are you okay?” I asked.

Even if he acted his normal cheerful self, something about him felt weird. He was moving with the same speed as a normal person, which on Tony might almost seem sluggishly.

He opened his mouth, and I could see him starting to form the same ‘I’m great; never better’-nonsense he always did, but it died on his lips. Instead, he looked at me seriously for once.

“I will be,” he nodded and off he went.

Then my eyes fell on Lucy.

I had been so sure I would never see her again.

She looked up at me and our eyes locked.

I needed her.

I needed to feel her, to breathe her in, to hear her voice to reassure myself that she was truly real.

My body moved towards her on its own accord.

Maybe she needed me a little as well because she was running to meet me.

We met in a clash of bodies, almost knocking each other to the ground.

I wrapped my arms around her and held her so tight that I almost crushed her.

She did the same with me.

“I thought you were gone,” I whispered against her shoulder, “God Lucy, I thought you were gone,”

I could feel myself trembling and I kissed her hair several times before burying my face in her neck. I didn’t care who was watching. Not even Tony.

“So did I for a moment,” she whispered.

We slowly came apart and I kissed her forehead.

I looked in her eyes and was tempted to kiss her lips as well, but the moment was broken.

“Would you shut up, you disgusting stain of ectoplasm?” she barked over my shoulder at the rucksack, making me chuckle.

Her cheeks were bright red.

All the same. After all, there was still a battle going on around us and I _had_ promised myself to tone things down.

I took a look around the room. Things were looking good. Most of the Rotwell-lot had fled the scene. It was down to two scientists, a guard and Steve Rotwell himself.

Holly got one of the scientists in the leg with the salt gun and the man limped away. Tony had nicked a few flares from my bag and threw one at the guard who also made a break for it out of the barn door with singed trousers.

The last scientist apparently decided that enough was enough and took off as well, as fast as her high heels could carry her, which was surprisingly quickly.

Rotwell however, stubbornly remained put.

“All the money and time invested in this, wasted” he growled. “because you little shits couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

“You invested money in this?” I made a show of looking around, “then why does it look like an oversized garden shed?”

Something in Rotwell’s eyes glinted and I suppose my comment was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He came charging at me with a roar, holding his sword with both hands in a move that made me involuntarily imagine him wearing a kilt.

I had underestimated his speed and didn’t move in time, but right before he was about to split my head in two, another blade swung in in front of me.

Tony stood next to me, having taken the full blow of the heavy sword with the thin blade of his rapier. His jaw was working with the exertion and I wondered again if he was truly up for it.

Nevertheless, it gave me time to slip out from under the swords in a very awkward limbo-like move.

I didn’t see the next few moves, but when I turned around, it became clear that Tony was indeed _not_ okay and in reality, he probably wasn’t up for it.

He seemed out of breath and he wasn’t as light on his feet as he usually was. I even saw him making some small mistakes. I was about to intervene, but Lucy put a hand on my shoulder.

“He needs this,” she mumbled next to me, but I could see her frowning as well.

“Do you have any idea about what you've done?” Rotwell yelled, “Years of research and experiments, ruined!”

“Experiments that should never have been conducted in the first place!” Tony retorted, “How many people d'you recon you’ve inadvertently killed with this? Both here and in Chelsea? By sending people in to stir up the dead?”

“You know more than I thought then but, in that case, you _must_ see that their sacrifice was a small price to pay!” Rotwell argued.

Tony looked as disgusted as I felt.

I felt my own jaw tighten and my nails digging into my palms. Ned had been one of those people Rotwell had sacrificed for whatever this was. It felt so pointless.

Even Cubbins who I knew would go to great lengths in the name of science looked appalled.

“No experiment is worth the lives of civilians!” Tony objected.

“Do you remember what I told you?” Rotwell taunted.

Tony smiled pleasantly “I remember you telling me that I’m a talented boy, and I’m inclined to agree with you,”

He lunged at Rotwell, but while Rotwell used brute strength, Tony generally relied on speed. Speed that he currently didn’t have.

Rotwell easily deflected him.

“I said you would regret crossing me,”

He looked at Lucy lewdly and she snarled beside me. I felt like stepping in front of her to protect her, to hide her, but I knew that the gesture would be far from welcome. Lucy fought her own battles. I noticed her fingers twitching near the throwing knives.

When Lucy was threatened, it was best not to step in to protect. It was better to get the hell out of the way, not to be caught in the crossfire.

Tony tried to attack again, but with a swift move and a clang of metal against metal, Rotwell sent him flying into the pole with the chain attached.

Rotwell lifted his sword, but Tony rolled out of the way and the sword cut the chain which was sucked into the vortex and disappeared.

Lucy’s anger turned into a look of concern and I heard Holly gasp.

“He's beating him,” she breathed.

I was just about to intervene when Cubbins decided to make everything so much worse.

The uncoordinated moron threw a flare, intending to get Rotwell but instead, it somehow landed far from his target and next to the large chain keeping the Visitors in the circle.

One of the links was damaged. Not enough to snap the chain entirely, but I could sense the excitement of the Visitors inside. I could see the swirling become more violent, but I lifted the goggles to see more details. I wished I hadn’t.

The Visitors had started congregating where the chain was weakened. Their combined force was even enough to move the chain minutely.

“I know! Shut up!” Lucy yelled over her shoulder to her bag.

Tony had lost his sword and was on the floor, out of breath and out of stamina.

Rotwell stood in front of him with his sword raised above his head, ready to deliver the final blow. I was about to run over there, but Lucy was faster than me.

With a kick that was worthy of Premier League, she knocked over Rotwell who landed with one hand inside the circle.

The next few moments horrified me. A Visitor generally causes a drop in temperature. The stronger the Visitor, the colder. A whole congregation of strong spirits apparently had the same effect as liquid nitrogen.

Frost instantaneously formed around Rotwell’s hand and started creeping up his arm all while he screamed in agony.

At the same time, he started moving towards the circle, struggling against an invisible force. I felt less horror than I probably should have when he was sucked fully into the circle. Ned was still fresh in my mind. The only worry I had was him shifting the thick iron chain when his shoes snagged on it as the last thing to go inside.

The Visitors seemed even more hungry now. I could see the chain shifting again and again at the weak link in the chain as if they were using an invisible ram to break loose.

Tony voiced my thoughts; “We need to destroy that circle,”

“Sure, but how?” I asked.

“That big, beautiful flare you have there at your belt George.” Tony smiled sympathetically at his friend.

“Big Brenda?” He asked, looking devastated.

I rolled my eyes, “Come off it, Cubbins. Where were you even going to use it anyway?”

“Fine,” he huffed and detached the thing from his belt.

Lucy hurried to take it before he could throw it.

“We need to hurry,” I pointed out when I saw the chain shifting again. The link was almost completely open.

I took Lucy’s rucksack, not to forget it and shoved the papers from the scientist’s bag into my own while she set the timer.

“Go!” she yelled. The others had already run ahead, but I stayed a bit behind to make sure that she made it too.

We ran as fast as we could, the only sound was of bouncing bags, each other’s breaths and our own heartbeats pumping in our ears.

The explosion lit up the entire meadow and I couldn’t help but turn around to watch it. The noise of it came not a moment after, along with a pressure wave pushed the air out of my lungs and knocked us all down.

Having been right behind me, Lucy landed on top of me front to front.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” I groaned into her ear.

I felt her breath on my throat as she giggled a bit. Then she leaned back and laughed. Probably in relief that it seemed that we had survived, because it certainly couldn’t be from my stupid comment.

She turned around and sat between my legs and I lifted myself a bit, supported by my elbows.

I glanced around at the others.

Tony looked at us with a slight nose wrinkle, but nothing too hostile. Considering the fact that we had just been through an actual battle, we weren’t looking too bad.

I probably looked a fright. I could feel the dried blood on my face, but I felt sure that the cut above my eyebrow had stopped bleeding.

Cubbins was covered from head to toe in magnesium and the clothes he was wearing would have to be binned because of all the burns.

Holly would have a hard time with her hair, I was sure. It was almost grey with salt. She had a small cut on the arm, but it didn’t look too alarming.

The ones who looked the best – physically, were Lucy and Tony, but at the same time, they were the ones I worried about the most.

They seemed tired. Drained somehow. Like they had aged a decade. We would need to have some words about what had happened in that circle and how the hell they had survived, when Rotwell had turned into an icicle and been eaten for a lack of a better word.

“Told you it could take the roof off a house,” Cubbins commented offhandedly, making me turn my attention back to the burning building.

Tony winced, “Let’s just hope the fire doesn’t reach the rest of the crate, didn’t you say something about an entire neighbourhood Quill?”

I shrugged, “I closed the case before we left. It was iron so it should protect them somewhat. But let’s not linger. We would have a lot of trouble explaining ourselves if we’re caught here anyway.”

I waited for Lucy to get up before standing myself and when I was about to, I was surprised to see Tony reach a hand down to help me up.

He looked a bit nervous. Probably afraid that I would chew him out some more. I absolutely had plans to do so but that could wait. I grabbed his wrist without hesitation and used it to pull myself up. We went back to Aldbury Castle side by side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any guesses as to what the skull was saying to Lucy?
> 
> Thank you for keeping up with the story and as always, please make my day with a comment or kudos <3 
> 
> Hugs and kisses (at a distance, obviously)


	26. Polly Wants A Cracker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit more light-hearted. -ish.
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

_Lucy:_

_..._

“Here you go, Cubbins. Christmas has come early this year,”

Quill pulled a big stack of papers out of his bag and put them down on the bed in front of George

He looked at the treasure with wide eyes.

“Thank you, Kipps,” he breathed before digging in.

Quill rolled his eyes and shook his head, but it was more fond than aggressive now.

We were sitting on the large double bed that he and George had shared the night before, except for Holly who was in the shower.

George had already been, and Quill had screamed when he had returned only wearing a tiny towel because George, like usually, had forgotten to bring clothes with him to the bathroom. The rest of us had been somewhat desensitised and only turned around with a slight shudder while he got dressed.

We had all agreed that it would be best to gather in one of the rooms, rather than at the bar.

From the window we could easily see how the fire from the institute had lit up the sky. Blue flashes had joined the light show and it probably wouldn’t be long until the authorities came looking for witnesses and then, it would be bad to get caught with burnt clothes.

Before going to the bathroom, Holly had helped Quill with the gash on his forehead.

The way she had stood between his legs, gently washing away soot, blood and the rest of the boot polish made my heart clench and I tried hard shove it down. I had only _just_ promised Lockwood not to pursue either of them and I had no claim to Quill whatsoever.

He had even rejected me that very morning. But maybe this was the reason for his rejection.

Men generally _did_ find Holly... delightful.

Then again, Holly _was_ also better than me at first aid and so, it was probably logical that she was the one to help him. But I couldn’t help but privately wish that I were the one tending to him. The one standing close to him. The one he looked up at and smiled. The one who teased him every time he winced.

Maybe it was just gratitude. He had fixed me up after _I_ was injured after all.

Yes, that was it.

I just wanted to return the favour.

Nothing wrong about that.

“So, what happened with you two?” Quill interrupted my thoughts, looking at me and Lockwood in turn, “all we saw were you going into that circle. What happened after? Why – how aren’t you dead?”

I hadn’t known they had seen us go in. Which probably meant that they had seen that I didn’t exactly go entirely willingly.

Oh boy.

Quill fixed Lockwood with a meaningful stare.

Lockwood fidgeted a bit and bit his lip.

“We thought – we thought that you were more of Rotwell’s people,”

Quill nodded, “so you thought you were being pinched in. Why didn’t you use the barn door?”

“We would have been seen if we did that,” Lockwood looked away, “and I wanted to know more,” he admitted in a mumble.

Quill closed his eyes and leaned his head backwards as if he were praying to some unseen deity for strength.

“Donald would be so furious,” he whispered and sighed deeply.

Lockwood’s face took a pinched quality and I felt like turning away. What Lockwood’s father would or wouldn’t be, wasn’t any of my business.

“Unfortunately, I also know that Celia would have been proud of your curiosity,” Quill continued, shaking his head in exasperation.

Lockwood smiled a little and his cheeks went pink.

“She was always keen on adventure. Still, she would have been disappointed in you now,”

Lockwood’s fragile smile fell.

Quill gave him a pointed look, “It’s one thing to risk your own life, but to risk someone else’s is something much different.”

Now I _really_ felt like leaving, but Lockwood grabbed my hand tight.

George was staring so intently at the papers that they might catch fire any moment.

 _“Aaaaaakward,”_ The skull sing-songed.

“It’s fine, really,” I shrugged.

Quill raised a disbelieving eyebrow at me, “It looked anything but fine from where I was standing. Don’t lie, Lucy. You didn’t want to go,”

I looked away, “I just hesitated on the threshold.”

Lockwood squeezed my hand in gratitude, but I let go. I wasn’t angry anymore, but I wasn’t entirely over it yet. I would be eventually though.

Quill nodded, obviously unconvinced, but thankfully he let it go.

“What was it even like in there?” he asked. George lifted his head, suddenly curious.

I felt a shiver run down my spine along with a phantom pain from when I lost the cape. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t form the words. I wished Holly was back from her shower. I hadn’t realised how much her support had come to mean to me.

“It was a gate-way of sorts,” Lockwood provided instead. His voice was just as hollow as I felt.

George leaned closer, “Leading where?”

I tried again to form the words but couldn’t.

 _“You know where you’ve been. Put old Cubbins out of his misery. Or put him_ in _misery. He’s going to go green with envy.”_

“I think it was the other side,” I whispered with a small shudder.

Quill put a hand on my back. It was warm, and it almost felt as if it was defrosting me. I wasn’t relaxed by any means, but the cold didn’t burn quite as hard anymore.

“I think you’re right. All the people there; it was all the dead people we’d been told about.” Lockwood added. He looked a bit tight when he saw Quill’s hand on my back, but he didn’t comment. Eventually, Quill let his hand fall back down.

I wish he hadn’t.

I bit my lip before continuing “It was so strange. Like any sort of life was gone. No moon or stars,”

“And the water was gone too,” Lockwood bit at one of the cuticles of his thumb.

Quill slapped his hand down in a movement that seemed completely natural.

“It was so cold,” I wrapped my arms around myself, “It was so cold that it was burning,”

“It sounds fascinating,” George breathed, “I wish I’d been,”

I swallowed thickly, “No, George. You really don’t.”

We fell into silence as we all tried to process it.

“And now to how you two aren’t dead? It’s the bird costumes, isn’t it?”

“ _Cluuuck-cluck-cluck-cluck”_

Lockwood looked scandalised, “Bird costu – they’re Spirit Capes, Quill!”

_“Cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck”_

“They’re feathery, ergo; bird costumes.” Quill shrugged.

“Lockwood, you do look a bit like a parrot in it,” George pointed out, not taking his eyes off the papers.

_“Polly wants a cracker!”_

Quill snorted “He’s a bloody peacock is what he is,”

“You’re one to talk with all the pretty gems on your rapier!” Lockwood threw half a biscuit at him in outrage

Quill tossed it right back, “It’s Italian,” he laughed

“It’s pretentious no matter what language it speaks,”

“Says the one wearing a suit into battle,”

_“Tell you what; both egg heads are cracked. Ditch them and run away with me,”_

I threw a sock at the skull.

Quill and Lockwood were still squabbling, and I shared a small smile with George.

“Lucy? Your turn,”

I was startled by Holly’s gentle voice. She had returned, smelling like peaches.

She looked at me with a quizzical eyebrow raised when she saw the argument that was rapidly devolving into a minor food fight. I was happy I wasn’t sleeping in this bed with all the biscuit crumbs.

“They’re arguing about which one of them is more of a peacock,” George explained and returned to the schematics.

Quill and Lockwood stiffened, apparently remembering that they had an audience.

Holly giggled and then broke into an all-out laugh. Snorts and everything. It was a magical thing to behold.

“But they’re both so –“ she interrupted herself with another burst of laughter, when both young men scowled at her.

Holly’s laugh was infectious, and I couldn’t help but join her.

“I think it’s mainly the strutting,” George offered drily.

Both Quill and Lockwood looked at George, deeply offended but George paid them no mind.

I shook my head at the whole situation and left them while still chuckling.

The shower left a lot to be desired. I was by no means neat but even I had to draw the line somewhere. Besides, there was a big difference between your own mess and the _stuff_ left behind by others.

I was grateful that Holly had gone before me. It was bound to have been worse before. Now, it still smelled like peaches.

I unpacked my things from my toiletry bag and went to work in the small shower stall.

I was in the process of washing my hair when an unbidden voice interrupted.

_“So, what body part are we soaping in now?”_

I let out a sigh “We already agreed, Skull. Not in the shower,”

_“You keep saying ‘not in the shower' but that doesn’t mean that we have an agreement. Besides, I think you secretly enjoy our little chats here or else you could just have turned off the valve,”_

I cursed “That doesn’t mean I want you here,”

_“No, of course not. You'd rather have that fire-crotch for some reason,”_

I spluttered something incoherent.

_“Don’t get me wrong, I applaud you for ditching Lockwood, but this is hardly an upgrade.”_

“I didn’t –“

_“No, I suppose you didn’t. My, my, my – you really have been busy in my absence. Playing two horses at once. Love the moral ambiguity of that,”_

“It’s nothing like that.”

_“Of course, it is. You’re going to have to choose eventually though. So, who’s it going to be then? The puppy-love crush or the hot affair with an older man?”_

“It’s not – I am _not_ having this discussion with you. Stay out of it.”

_“You probably could choose both, I suppose. As long as you let me watch,”_

“Eugh! You won’t be watching _anything!_ I swear, I will leave you on top of the washing machine during the spin cycle.”

_“You wouldn’t dare,”_

“Do you really want to test me?” I gritted out.

_“Fine, fine, I’ll leave you alone to dream about ginger nuts,”_

“Why the hell did I even come for you?!” I yelled.

I stomped my foot which I shouldn’t have done because it caused me to slip and fall hard on my bum with a squeal and a resounding slap.

Even though we had gotten to bed late, we still took breakfast early. When I say breakfast, it was in the weakest sense of the word. It was really just tea, coffee and whatever biscuits we had left.

The previously quiet village was now buzzing with activity. Agents from DEPRAC seemed to be everywhere, taking statements from the villagers and generally snooping around. Trucks and vans were driving in and out of the small town. I even saw a van full of DEPRAC-agents in blue protective suits, not unlike the ones the Rotwell-people had been wearing.

I wondered how much influence the institute had still and if it even mattered now that Steve Rotwell himself was conveniently missing. Supposedly there would be a vice president who would take over the company, but would they have power enough to bury an investigation? And did they know what had been going on here?

Journalists had begun snooping around so a large cover-up would be hard to execute.

All five of us were too tired for conversation. We sat around our table. My foot was lying comfortably in Quill’s lap again. I had strained it too hard during the night and it was throbbing, and it felt oddly stiff. Without any prompting, Quill had simply picked it up, pulled off my smelly boots and sock to inspect it. Then he sat with one hand on it, caressing my ankle with his thumb while rummaging around in his bag for bandages with the other.

To make matters worse, Lockwood had taken my hand when I winced from the pain when Quill tightened the bandage.

My confusion and exasperation were complete. Holly sat next to Quill, hiding her smile behind her cup, but her shoulders were shaking with poorly suppressed laughter at my expense.

George, bless him, cared more about the papers in the bag between his legs. He’d agreed that it would be better not to take them out in public, but that didn’t prevent him from glancing at the bag every few seconds.

Lockwood was called over by Skinner.

I wriggled my toes a bit and Quill absently put a warm hand on top of my foot while reading the newspaper.

“Anything about last night?”

He shook his head distractedly, “No. Or, I wouldn’t know, this is from yesterday but get this -"

“Skinner wanted to ask us to leave. Apparently DEPRAC need the rooms,” Lockwood announced when he returned.

Quill looked up from the newspaper, “I don’t know about you, but I hadn’t exactly planned on lingering,”

“Figure we're probably mostly done here anyway,” George shrugged, “the uh – Chelsea-issue virtually ended when we-"

Loud footsteps made George stop.

I looked up at the moustache casting a shadow over our table.

“Inspector Barnes,” Lockwood greeted, “what brings you around these parts?”

Barnes looked at Lockwood with a deadpan expression, “Nothing that you know anything about, young Lockwood.”

He looked at each of us in turn and took in our poor conditions. Bruised, burnt and cut up.

When he reached Quill, he did a double take.

“Mr Kipps? You really joined up with this lot?” he asked in an incredulous tone that I didn’t quite appreciate.

“Not exactly,” Quill replied smoothly, “I’ve just lent them a hand. You've no doubt heard about how _busy_ we’ve been in this little town. We’ve been working _so awfully hard_ ,” he smirked.

Barnes nodded slowly. “Too right you have. You’ve been so busy that you haven’t even had time or opportunity to do anything else. You _especially_ haven’t been anywhere near the Rotwell Institute.”

Lockwood played along, “Rotwell Institute? Do they have anything nearby?”

“Not anymore, they don’t” Barnes mumbled under his breath, “Later today, you’ll likely read in the papers that they were conducting dangerous experiments and producing unauthorised weaponry. One of their experiments failed and caused a horrible accident.”

He gave us all a significant look, “And that’s _exactly_ what happened. Of course, you don’t know anything more than that because _you – weren’t – there_.” He tapped the table with each of the last three words for emphasis.

“If I were you, I’d go ahead and spread that message everywhere,”

He looked around to double check that no one was listening, “Be careful with who you trust. You don’t know what you’ve stepped into. Things are going to be very different from now on,” he warned us in a low tone.

“Of course,” Lockwood smiled.

Barnes nodded and used his foot to slide a plastic bag I hadn’t noticed before under Quill’s chair. Quill pretended not to notice.

Without another word, he turned around and walked away.

An hour later we were on the train back to London, wondering exactly _how_ different it was going to be. It hadn’t particularly sounded like it was a good sort of change ahead of us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry/not sorry about the Skull.  
> I hope you feel like I captured its spirit. (The horrible pun was totally intended and that, I AM sorry for)
> 
> Hope you liked a little more light-hearted banter. I felt they needed it after all the near-death experiences.
> 
> Please do me a favour and leave a comment on it!
> 
> I really love to know what you guys think <3
> 
> Btw, I really had doubts about the rating for this because of the Skull. Ratings in Danish stuff are VASTLY different from how things are in the rest of the world and we are frequently in shitstorms for this.  
> One of the most beloved characters is a half-drunk, often half-naked sailor who literally has a song about how it's okay to swear. He also did a Christmas Special where he starts a metal band. We've also had a man in a video imitate Miley Cyrus in Wrecking Ball and one guy dancing only wearing sequin-covered speedos. Also people in drag, all rated for general audiences. And last but not least, the controversial program where adults strip naked to show kids different body types. This is targeted towards preteens.  
> Anyway, cursing, and a lot of nudity is something kids are used to here.


	27. Friends, Family and Family Friends

_Quill:_

_..._

_”Now, are you going to explain why you needed to skip out on your work at barely a moment's notice?”_

I sighed heavily. This was the last thing I needed. It was late afternoon and I had only just arrived at home from the long train journey from Aldbury Castle. After arriving in London we'd all gone to the Furnaces to make sure that people saw us burning Sources. By the time I’d reached my front door, I was absolutely knackered. And then of course the phone rang.

”Afternoon to you too. I didn’t skip out. I brought some of it with me.”

_”This is hardly a good start, you know. At this pace we'll have to fire you before the month is out. Technically, you’re still on probation.”_

I snorted, ”You literally said the other day that I was the only one you’d trust with this.”

_”And your brother!”_

I rolled my eyes even though she couldn’t see it. ”You know just as much as I do, that he doesn’t want anything to do with it. He’s happy where he is.”

I heard her sigh in the other end and it was followed by a short silence in which I was certain that she said several curse words inside her head.

_”It’s not just that, Quill.”_

She sounded tired and I felt a small stab of bad conscience.

_”It’s about setting an example to the others. We can’t favour you. You know that.”_

”I know,” I conceded, ”I’m sorry, mum.”

 _”You better be,”_ she grumbled.

”I was on a case,”

There was an extended silence.

 _“I thought you were done with all that, Quill.”_ She sounded a bit anxious and I felt another stab of bad conscience. My parents never wanted me to become an agent in the first place.

“I’m just helping out from time to time.”

 _“But I thought you were finally done at Fittes. They fired you. Are you alright?”_ I could practically hear her frown.

“Just a few scrapes. I was with Tony’s team.”

 _”Oh,” she breathed and didn’t say anything for a long time. “How is he?”_ she asked eventually.

How was he?

_Oh mum, he’s just dandy, he almost killed… someone, went to the land of the dead, we broke into a research facility, had an all-out battle with the people working there, killed the leader of one of the largest agencies in the country and blew up a bloody building._

“He’s… Tony. He’s doing okay, I suppose. It was a hard case though,” I grimaced.

She sighed heavily _“Is it too much to ask for my boys to stay safe and not put themselves in danger?”_

“William is perfectly safe. Boring, even.”

_“I meant you two dunderheads.”_

“Mum…” I closed my eyes and bit my lip.

 _“Tony is one of my boys. Whether he likes it or not.”_ She sniffled a bit, _“I’m happy you two are getting along.”_

“Getting along might be a bit of a stretch. It was someone from his team who invited me to come along and Tony wasn’t exactly happy about it, but it’s going better.”

_“... And did this someone happen to be a girl?”_

“No, mum,” I groaned. I knew where this conversation was heading, and I wanted it to end.

_“And how is Katherine? I always found her so charming,”_

“Drop it, mother! There is nothing between Kate and I, and there never will be.”

She sighed sadly, _“I just want you to be happy, love.”_

“I don’t need to be with someone in order to be happy.”

_“I know. I just fear that you’re closing yourself off. It’s been years since -"_

“I’m not. It’s not like I haven’t had a girlfrie -"

_“I’m talking about love, Quill. And that disaster was many things, but love wasn’t one of them. And even that was three years ago.”_

I winced. “I’m fine mum.”

She sighed again. _“I'd like to have grandchildren some day you know.”_

I snorted “How is it that William is there when you need to threaten me, but as soon as this discussion comes along, I’m suddenly an only child?”

_“I’m only teasing.”_

I didn’t believe that for a second.

“How’s dad?”

 _“As daft as ever,”_ I imagined her headshake and exasperated smile, _“He’s decided to start a new diet which for some reason contains absurd amounts of kale of all things,”_

“Come now, mum. Kale is incredibly healthy,”

_“All I know is that it tastes like farts and that the chip-shop down the corner is suddenly seeing plenty of business from me. Don’t tell your dad.”_

I chuckled, “I won’t. See you Monday,”

We hung up and I went to make myself some decaf coffee. I planned to eat and go straight to bed to sleep for the next twenty hours.

I opened my drawer and was about to work on an old kitchen knife when I heard the sound of the door knocker.

“Now what?” I moaned.

I went to open the door and I had barely unlocked it before a blonde blur pushed past me, down the hall and into the kitchen.

“Hello to you too, Kate!” I called out as I locked the door again.

She had already poured herself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table. She looked up when I entered.

“What the hell happened to you?” she blurted.

I had forgotten that I had bruises and fresh wounds on both my cheek and my forehead. Not exactly the typical injuries one got at a publishing firm.

“Would you believe it if I told you they were paper cuts?” I shrugged innocently and poured myself a cup.

The only response I got was a slight raise of an eyebrow.

“Fine,” I sighed, “I was helping out on a case.”

Her eyebrows went high on her forehead, “You’re going on cases without me now?”

“I’m not completely incapable, you know,” I grumbled and sat down at the table in front of her.

“I’m not saying that” she smiled softly, “It’s just... strange I suppose. We’ve worked together since I even started as an agent. It’s weird that you aren’t there anymore. And now you’re telling me you’re going out on cases anyway?”

She leaned towards me, putting an elbow on the table and snatched one of the pears from my fruit bowl.

“I was with Tony’s team.”

She smirked “And did that happen to include a certain freelancer?”

“Uh – well yes.”

“Aaaand?” she asked through a mouthful of pear. As far as I knew, the only people who had seen her eat so messily were me, her parents and of course Ned.

I sighed, “And nothing, Kate. Drop it.”

She must have realised by either my face or my tone that I wasn’t up for her usual ribbing because she didn’t push it.

“I can’t believe Lockwood called you. I mean, Chelsea went okay-ish, but he was always so annoyed at working with you. Especially without Talent.”

I couldn’t contain my grin. “Well, that’s where things get interesting. You remember Cubbins, right?”

“The one who looks like an unbaked loaf of bread?” she took a sip of her coffee and grimaced, “Is this decaf?”

I nodded “Yes, and yes, that’s the one. Turns out he has even stickier fingers than we realised.”

“He still owes me four flares.” She grumbled.

I snorted. “Fittes is giving you an endless supply of flares.”

“It’s the principle of the matter,” she shook her head.

“Anyway – look at this,” I took the goggles Cubbins had given me out of my bag and gave them to her. She turned them around in her hands.

“That’s… quite the fashion statement. Very bold.”

I gave her a look and took them back, “It wasn’t Tony who asked me to go on the case. It was Cubbins because he wanted me to test these.”

“What are they even?”

“Apparently, they’re made with crystal instead of glass. And get this – I can See again. When I’m wearing these, I can _See_!” I was so excited I was close to jumping.

“You what?”

She looked at me as if I were crazy, which in her defence, I probably looked. The smile I was wearing was certainly manic enough.

“I took down a strong Screaming Spirit _on my own_. That’s how I got this,” I pointed at the gash on my cheek which hurt because my smile stretched it.

I looked at her carefully as she took it all in. She had always been hard to read, but now emotions were flying across her face. Primarily disbelief.

“That’s not possible,” she breathed eventually.

“I have paperwork from the Furnaces that says otherwise. I delivered the Source myself.”

“So, what are you going to do? Are you going to go back to being an agent? Joining Lockwood?” she leaned back in her chair and looked at me with a slight nose-wrinkle

I gave her a snort. “Not bloody likely. I might help them out from time to time, but I promised my mum that I’d stay at the firm. Learn the basics before they retire.”

“Do you even want that?” she asked sceptically.

I sighed and thought about it.

“You know, I actually think I do. I thought once that agency work was it for me. But after Ned,”

She drew in a sharp breath. Ned had been a sensitive issue for a while. I had lost a dear friend, but Kate had lost the one she loved. I still received midnight calls from time to time when she needed someone to talk to.

“After Ned, things just haven’t been the same. I should have been there for him. I should have helped him. I can’t be a leader or a supervisor anymore, Kate. I’m not cut for it,” I smiled ruefully.

“But Quill, you were the best supervisor in the entire agency,” she frowned.

I shook my head lightly. “If that’s true, I’m afraid that says more about the others than it does about me,” I smirked, “Besides, I have my own plans for where I want the firm to go. What about you? Are you starting to make plans for the future?”

She shifted and put her hair behind her ears.

“Well, my mum wants me to take over too sometime. But can you imagine me cutting hair?”

She winced and I snorted at the mental image.

“What, you with scissors and chit-chat? All smiles and customer service?” I grinned at her and she threw a tea towel at me which made me grin even more.

“Why don’t you take an education? Agents get full scholarships for their services. You could become an accountant or something like that. You could still technically run the company. Maybe hire a manager or something,” I saluted her with my mug.

She nodded slowly, thinking about it, “That might be worth considering”

I stretched and heard several joints pop. Kate made a face at me.

“I don’t mean to kick you out or anything, but I had plans to just eat a bit of bread, have a shower and head to bed,” I groaned.

“I think you should consider having the shower first because you really stink. Might put you off your food subconsciously.” She winked and I threw the tea towel back at her.

“I believe you were on your way home, Miss Godwin!” I pointed at the door.

“Fine, fine. I’ll probably stop by sometime around Tuesday, is that fine?”

“It is if you let me cook.”

She snorted in derision, “Not a chance. Last time you served three sorts of Brussel sprouts with cauliflower rice. We’re having pizza, I’m bringing it and you’re eating it.”

She got up and ruffled my hair as if I were a small child.

“Fine,” I conceded, and she smirked in victory.

“By the way, I have a pocketknife that’s gone a bit dull, do you think –“

I sighed. “Just put it in the drawer.”

She beamed at me and put it with the other three knives she had put in there for me to fix.

“You’re obnoxious, I grumbled.

“You adore me.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes.

“Get out before you get the boot.”

She blew me a kiss and left.

I often lamented that killing people was illegal. I had a scythe in the basement, and I would love to use it on the twat hammering away at my door at 7.30 in the morning. I turned around and covered my head with my pillow, pretending that I wasn’t home, but the knocking continued.

Not only that, but the maniac was taking the opportunity of knocking on my door to beat out a happy little rhythm, so it was safe to say that whoever it was, wasn’t in some sort of distress but was determined on distressing me.

Eventually, I had enough. I thundered down the stairs, into the hall and ripped the door open

“What?” I snarled.

Tony was standing on the step looking sheepish with one hand raised.

I sighed in exasperation, “Of course it’s you. Who else would be so annoying first thing in the morning?” I grumbled and stepped back to let him in.

“Well, quite a num-"

“It was a rhetorical question, Tony. Kitchen.” I growled and pointed the way. I needed coffee.

I popped back upstairs to get a shirt to wear and when I reached the kitchen, he was standing, poking at the magnets there.

“Who’s Charlotte?”

I snorted. “Five-year old from a case. She came out of her room while we were fighting the Wraith in their living room. Couldn’t take her back without putting her in danger so I sat her down inside the chains and told her to make a drawing.”

Tony nodded appreciatively. “It’s got remarkably good detail. I’m assuming those are worms.”

“What do you want, Tony?” I demanded. I didn’t have the patience for discussing children’s artwork.

“I uh – wanted to invite you for breakfast,” he shrugged and rolled back and forth a bit on the balls of his feet.

“Breakfast?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

He bit his lip and nodded. “It’s a sort of tradition. After a good case, we usually gather in the kitchen to celebrate with breakfast.”

“And what’s that to do with me?”

He huffed impatiently, “Well, you were part of the team for this one, weren’t you? So, you should come for breakfast too.”

I considered it. “Do you have any coffee?”

He blinked a bit. “Uh – I’m not sure,”

“Do you at least have a coffeemaker?” I shook my head.

“I think Holly found one a few weeks ago. Does that mean you'll come?” he swung his arms back and forth and blew out his cheeks.

I shrugged and found some coffee in the pantry. “Sure. I don’t have anything else to do today anyway. Lead the way.”

He seemed a bit stunned when I turned around as if he’d expected me to say no.

“Unless you changed you mind?” I prompted when he didn’t move.

“What? No. I didn’t. It’s just that I didn’t – I thought – never mind.”

He rubbed his neck, and his cheeks went slightly pink.

“Your eloquence astounds me, Tony. Let’s just go.”

I shooed him towards the exit, and we were on our way.

When Donald and Celia were alive, I remembered how everyone always complimented Celia on the beautiful garden. A ridiculous amount of people were talking about Celia’s green thumb. I never understood, how no one knew that Celia wouldn’t be able to keep a single cactus alive, much less grow a beautiful flower garden. It was all Donald’s work.

He’d overheard quite a lot of our conversations, lurking about in the rhododendron.

Tony and I walked up towards the house on the broken tiles. I stopped short when I noticed the pink flowers running unevenly along the building.

“Jessica and I planted those,”

Tony frowned, “What?”

“Those pink tulips around the house,” I smiled fondly. Through all those winters, springs, summers and autumns, those tulips had survived.

“You did?” He looked at the flowers as if he’d never noticed them before.

I nodded. “Donald made us do it. He’d caught us stealing biscuits. We uh – we wanted to make a picnic.” I huffed a small laugh.

Tony smiled widely at me, and continued walking up the pathway “You were caught stealing?”

I wrinkled my nose “Jess made me do it.”

“I’m not surprised.”

I shook my head. “I think it’s a family trait.”

Tony winked before walking through the door, heading in the direction of the kitchen.

I hesitated on the threshold.

I had only been here once since Jessica died. That was in the middle of the night for a murder of all things and I hadn’t gone fully inside.

But this? To go in there and see how everything would be different? Or to go inside and see that nothing had changed?

I didn’t know what option was worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Kipps has a brother. For some unknown reason, Quill hates it when people refer to him by his nickname and insists on pronouncing his full name, always.  
> Hope you enjoyed a little break from all the angst.
> 
> Please comment and let me know what you think <3


	28. The Most Important Meal of the Day

I was _so_ _cold_.

My heart was pounding in my chest.

The spirit cape was ripped off my back and I screamed. I fell to my knees.

I cried out for Lockwood.

He was far ahead of me and at first, he didn’t react.

Maybe he hadn’t heard me because he continued on.

I tried again, but it was so cold that my voice failed me.

He kept running, but eventually he turned around.

He looked at me with a sad smile.

I was certain that he would come back for me.

Then he turned back around and kept running.

I cried harder and fell completely to the ground.

The grass broke and crackled against my face.

The ghosts reached me and one of them grabbed my shoulder.

I screamed in horror.

The hand was completely corporeal.

The ghost lock had lifted, and I scrambled to sit up.

I scratched at my throat, trying to breathe.

Two arms grabbed me from behind and I struggled against them.

I wouldn’t surrender myself to death. I would fight until the end.

“No! Let me go!” I screamed.

“Lucy, it’s okay,” they whispered in my ear.

“No! I don’t want to!”

I struggled harder.

I heard quick thundering footsteps that sounded oddly hollow.

“Shhh, Lucy, calm down!”

“Let me go!” I cried.

I tried to lunge forward and ended up falling off an edge, but whatever was gripping me tight, fell along with me and landed on top of my back.

I heard a door open with a slam

“What the hell is going on here?” a second, furious voice interrupted.

I whimpered.

Things started to become clearer. I wasn’t lying on grass. I was lying on a carpet. I didn’t see a frozen valley before me. I was looking at George’s bare feet.

There was no spirit, except for the one in the jar which pulsed with a sharp green glow, powerful enough to light up the entire room like an eerie sun. It was completely silent though because I had closed the valve for the night.

The thing that was digging painfully into my chest was Lockwood’s hands that were clasped in front of me and the thing that made me unable to breathe was Lockwood’s entire weight lying on top of me.

He got off me with some difficulty since his hands were captured underneath us both. I pushed myself up so I could lean against the wall and wiped the tears off my face.

“Lockwood!” George barked “What the hell are you doing?”

“I uh – this isn’t what it looks like,” he cleared his throat, “I was helping Lucy.”

George looked at him incredulously, “By pinning her to the floor?”

“I – no, NO! No, nothing like that, George, God! I just – we fell,” he finished lamely and rubbed his neck.

“Why are you even here, Lockwood?” I asked. My voice was oddly scratchy, and it hurt a bit to swallow.

Lockwood a look of hurt ghosted over his face before he let out a frustrated huff. “I uh – I had a nightmare,” he admitted. “And I just – I wanted to see you and I went up here and I know I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry, but then I was here and then _you_ had a nightmare and I just wanted to help, Luce. I think that maybe I just made things worse though.” He ranted.

George slumped, took off his glasses and slowly cleaned them in his shirt. “Right. I’ll put the kettle on,” he mumbled before trotting back downstairs.

Lockwood leaned against the windowsill and ran his hand through his hair. “This is a right mess.”

I made a small snort that turned into a sniffle. “I think _we’re_ a right mess, Lockwood. What did you dream about?”

He ran a hand down his face.

“I uh – what did _you_ dream about?” he deflected.

I sighed “You left me,” I whispered. I didn’t need to clarify, where.

“Lucy, I would never,” he breathed.

“I know,” I assured him in a small voice, “but this time you did. And they all came for me. All of them.”

I shivered and he stepped over and sat down next to me.

He cleared his throat and shifted a bit “I dreamt that I didn’t get to you in time. You know – when you fell. You died over there. And I just had to see- I _needed_ to see that you were really here.”

“I am. I’m right here. And you came back for me. And thank you for trying to help me. I know you had good intentions.” I put my head on his shoulder.

I felt him nodding slowly beside me “I have enough of those to pave an entire road, it would seem.”

He got back up and reached his hand down to me.

“Pitkin’s?” He offered.

I shook my head and took his hand, letting him pull me up. “I’ve grown rather fond of the tea Holly bought for me, actually. It’s better in the evening.”

I let go of his hand and went ahead of him down the stairs where the three of us enjoyed a nice cup of tea together in silence.

We were home.

“It’s a bread knife, Tony! Not an axe. You use it in a sawing motion – no, sawing – for heaven’s sake, give me that thing, I can’t keep watching you manhandle that poor bread.”

I squinted in the harsh sunlight that streamed through my bedroom window. The door was open just a crack and the voices from downstairs travelled easily into my room.

“Lockwood, you can whisk this instead,” I heard Holly say.

There was a long silence, “What is it?”

Holly laughed delightedly and I heard her giving Lockwood gentle instructions for what sounded like waffles.

“Quill, could you go get Lucy, please?” She said next.

I stiffened underneath the covers.

“Sure. Where is she?”

“My room,” Lockwood said distractedly.

“Your – _your_ room. When did _that_ happen?”

I felt myself blush at the implication and if I wasn’t much mistaken, I detected a little bit of hurt in his voice. It was likely that I _was_ mistaken though. I had started to realise that maybe I wasn’t the best at understanding these things.

Lockwood made a huff of frustration. Whether he was frustrated with Quill or whatever Holly was having him do, I didn’t know.

“My _old_ room,” he clarified.

I heard Quill starting to ascend the stairs.

I tried moving as silently as possible. I hurriedly snatched some clothes from the floor and kicked the rest of it under the bed. Then I got dressed behind the door in case he came up here before I could finish. I almost fell twice.

I rubbed my face and ran my fingers through my hair a couple of times deeming that to be sufficient.

It didn’t usually take this long to climb the stairs, did it?

I decided that I wouldn’t wait for him to come get me. We could meet halfway or something. On impulse, I grabbed the jar. He should get to celebrate a little too.

In the end, Quill didn’t find me; I found him, on the first-floor landing.

He made a small jump when I put a hand on his arm.

“I haven’t -" he cut himself off. He tapped the doorframe to Jessica’s room with a finger.

“I’m sure it would be alright if you wanted to go inside.”

“Define ‘alright'" he smiled sadly, and I took his hand.

I sighed. “I wish I could,”

His smile turned into something softer and maybe a bit happier and he interlaced our fingers. My mouth suddenly felt very dry. We’d held each other’s hands so many times before, but never like this for some reason. Even if the difference was minuscule, it felt as if all my organs were squeezed into a ball that was pressing against my lungs.

I reminded myself of the promise I'd given Lockwood and forced myself to let go.

“We should probably go downstairs,” I whispered.

He bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah. Downstairs,” he whispered back.

He swallowed and opened his mouth as if to say something more but changed his mind.

I felt my own lips curl in a small smile, and I walked past him and down the stairs.

“Wait, Lucy,”

I turned around to face him and found him with deeply confused frown that I hadn’t expected.

“What?

“There’s something in your hair,”

I patted my own head, but I couldn’t feel anything.

“Let me,” he smiled gently, but when his fingers ran through my hair, his frown returned.

“I – it’s not _in_ your hair. It _is_ your hair,”

“What?”

“Let’s go downstairs in the light. I need to see this better.”

He put a hand on my shoulder, and we went downstairs, but rather than going in the kitchen, he steered me towards the living room and the large windows there.

He took a lock of my hair, but I couldn’t see it myself because it was so short.

“What is it? Is this like the thing with my nails because if so, I’d say that your obsession with my grooming habits have gone just a bit too far.” I crossed my arms in front of me.

The only response I got was the quirk of a small smile while he followed the strands all the way up to my scalp which he inspected. It reminded me of two monkeys I'd seen once Lockwood and George had taken me to the Zoo on a day off.

“I’m fairly sure that I don’t have any head lice but if you do find any, can you please promise not to eat them?” I wrinkled my nose.

“I promise not to eat your hypothetical head lice,” he chuckled lightly.

He was so close I could feel his breath on my hair and smell the familiar scent coming off him. He’d obviously had a shower recently because it was particularly strong.

“Did you dye your hair? Because if so, whoever did it, did an amazing job,”

“No! I didn’t dye my hair,” I scoffed, “Now, will you tell me what the point of this is?”

He bit his lip and wrinkled his nose. It was clear that he didn’t want to respond, but I gave him my best ‘you better tell me now or I’ll beat it out of you'-look

Unfortunately, he didn’t seem the least bit intimidated, but looked rather lost in thought.

He turned around and walked towards the kitchen.

“Hey!” I protested and followed him, intent on giving him a piece of my mind, but when I arrived in the kitchen, he already had his hands in the hair of Lockwood, who stood completely frozen with his shoulders up near his ears. I snickered a bit.

“Quill,” Lockwood started when he seemed to have recovered enough to regain his voice, “What are you doing, exactly?”

“It’s your hair. It’s turning white,”

He pointed at a strand of Lockwood’s hair. I put the skull on the counter and grabbed a spoon to look at my own reflection and sure enough, white hair was mixed in with my normal brown strands.

Lockwood’s eyes widened. “Does it look bad?” he asked, touching his hair gingerly as if it might start to fall off too.

Quill took a deep breath, “... No.”

“You hesitated,” George commented, not looking up from the newspaper.

“No, I didn’t.” Quill defended.

Lockwood looked at him with a frown.

“Lucy has it too,” Quill continued, and all eyes turned in my direction, “Do you think it’s from when you went through the circle? Is there anything else you’ve noticed that’s different?” He asked worriedly.

At the mention of the circle, George was up immediately and was studying Lockwood intensely, like he sometimes did when he had experimented on the skull. I hoped for Lockwood’s sake that George wouldn’t insist on taking him with him in the bath.

I shuddered a little.

Holly came close to me and looked closely at me, more with concern than curiosity.

I shrugged “I dunno. It’s hard to say. I mean, I _do_ feel more tired, but we did also have a hard couple of days. And with the injuries I had before in the mix, I haven’t the foggiest. You?” I asked Lockwood.

“Uh, I don’t know,” he started, while batting George’s inquisitive hands away like they were flies, “I mean, I’m tired too. More than usual I suppose, but not something too alarming, I think.”

“You don’t think there could be any long-term effects?” Holly asked me.

I sighed. “Who knows. Either way, it’s not like we can undo it. Maybe there’s something about it in those notes Quill gave you George?”

George sprang from Lockwood who gave me a grateful look. Before he could reach the notes though, I had snatched them from the table.

“ _After_ breakfast.”

I went to hide them in the library. When I returned, breakfast was already in full swing. George sat on his chair, pouting and sending me evil looks, but he cheered more with each bite of food. It wasn’t too long before he had given up his irritation with me, even if he still stared longingly in the direction I had gone with the papers before.

It was a right feast with eggs, bacon and waffles. Holly had even snuck some fruit onto the table. A paper bag with fresh bread from the baker’s was on the counter and if I wasn’t much mistaken, there were donuts for later as well.

The kitchen door was open, letting in fresh air, sunlight and birdsong from the garden.

It filled me with a bubble of joy, and I was certain that none of the people present had seen me smile this much in a long time, if ever.

We were all alive.

Against all odds, we had somehow made it.

I looked around at the others in turn. Holly who sat, daintily eating a kiwi with a teaspoon, George who in contrast had several stains on his sweatshirt already, Lockwood still sat, touching his hair now and again as if he tried to either feel the difference or make sure that it was still there.

Quill looked happier and more relaxed than I’d ever seen him except the times I’d been to his house, even if there seemed to be a small shade of melancholy hanging over him.

He caught me looking at him and quirked a small smile in my direction. I returned it and hurried to turn my attention back on my waffles which were delicious even though I could see that they were whole grain. I compensated for their healthiness with some extra butter.

The chatter flowed easily between us. George gave us a summary of what had been written in the paper.

I was happy to see Lockwood and Quill getting along. They still seemed a bit awkward around each other. Every now and again, one of them would say something that would make them both pause and measure each other’s reactions before slowly continuing or changing the subject.

Sometimes though, Quill’s smile would fall when he looked around the kitchen. Not the people in it, but the kitchen itself. Other times he would spot something, and a smile would spontaneously appear on his face. I wondered how often he had sat in the same spot when he was younger, but with an entirely different group of people.

I looked over at him again and this time he was the one already staring at me. His cheeks went slightly pink and he turned his focus back on the bread he had been buttering.

We were just about done. George was the only one still eating and the rest of us were picking at breadcrumbs or merely drinking tea, when somebody rang the doorbell.

Holly, dutiful as ever, went to answer. The rest of us were watching George compose what he deemed the perfect sandwich.

When Holly returned, she looked quite flustered. Her eyes darted rapidly around at all our mess and when I saw who came up behind her, I immediately understood why.

There, dressed as if she were going to a party came none other than the elusive Penelope Fittes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!  
> What did you think of the chapter?
> 
> You caught the reference, right?
> 
> Please leave a comment before you go - It makes me so so happy when you do. Even just to say hi <3


	29. Fleshy Bits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the comments!  
> One thing I need to get off my chest before we start is that I know that with my writing binge, I'm probably monopolising the top of feed quite a bit. So if you've made a search for Lockwood & co. fics, remember to scroll past this one too because there are some great people who've written some really great stuff, so make sure to check those out as well or else you'll be missing out <3

There she was Ms Fittes. The woman who was rarely seen in public at all, dressed to the nines in our kitchen. It was a surreal experience. It was like looking at a cut-out from one of Lockwood’s gossip magazines.

I was suddenly very conscious about my own appearance. I was quite certain my shirt was inside out, and my hair looked like a bird’s nest, not to mention the crumbs.

“Good morning! Pardon my intrusion. May I come in?” She smiled pleasantly, but there was something about it that I didn’t like.

Lockwood practically jumped out of his chair, “Of course.”

“Marvellous. I believe you know Sir Rupert Gale?”

Oh yes, we knew the human stain that came walking through the door behind her. Handsome enough fellow with curly blonde hair and a moustache that was so neatly groomed that I wondered if he spent every morning with a ruler and a nail clipper in front of the mirror.

“We’re uh – acquainted of course. I apologise for the mess. Shall we move into the living room?” Lockwood offered

Ms Fittes smiled “No, I’d love to see where you do your… work. Here in your charming little kitchen. It’s very… rustic,” she commented as she took it all in.

The messy thinking cloth. The bags of salt and iron filings propped up against the wall.

Her eyes crept closer and closer to the counter where the jar with the skull stood in full view.

I purposely dropped my knife on my plate with a loud clang. Thankfully, it distracted her even if it made her turn her eyes on me.

Lockwood looked just as confused as the rest of us were. Except for Quill who looked wary. He subtly followed Sir Rupert’s movements wherever he went, keeping an eye on the sword by his side in particular.

“A cup of tea then?” Lockwood offered dutifully.

“A small one perhaps”

She had barely finished the sentence before she sat with a cup and a saucer in beautiful porcelain that I never even knew we had. Lockwood hurried to take an extra chair for her to sit on.

I was grateful that Holly, in the process of pouring the tea, had the good sense to cover the jar with the skull with a tea towel in a move that was so casual that there could be no doubt that we had nothing to hide. At least not there.

There was a heavy, almost comical silence where we all sat frozen, staring at her as she took a small sip of the tea.

“What I came by for today, was to thank you, Anthony. You have done me a great service,”

Lockwood frowned “Me? I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow.”

She smiled blandly, “As you very well know, the Rotwell Agency has found itself without a leader and several of the people in upper management in both the Agency and the Institute are now under investigation.”

“We’ve read a bit about it in the paper, yes.” Lockwood smiled. He kept it together well, in my opinion.

“Yes, well. What you perhaps didn’t know is that with so many employees in such a large company adrift, it was decided that it was better for the Fittes Agency to take them under our wing, so to speak. In other words, the Rotwell agents have become Fittes agents, the Rotwell supervisors have become Fittes supervisors and the Rotwell scientists – have become Fittes scientists. And do you know what the Fittes scientists have told me?”

“Can’t say that I do, no.” Lockwood shrugged.

“Well firstly they confessed the things they had meddled in. Dreadful business and dangerous as well. Those sorts of things are not for our eyes. Secondly, they told me what happened the other night. They told me about some intruders.”

“Five intruders they gave _very_ thorough descriptions of.” Sir Rupert inserted with a self-satisfied smirk.

Ms Fittes looked at each of us knowingly and we all tried to look as innocent as possible without looking like we were trying to look innocent. In other words, we were trying to do the impossible and failed miserably.

“So of course, you can see why I need to thank you,” she continued, “because without you I would never have known the extent of what Rotwell’s had been up to and I would never have gained as much as I have. Fittes has almost doubled in size thanks to you. The possibilities are endless for me now.”

Her smile never wavered and to be frank, it was unnerving. None of us said anything.

“Of course, after this fiasco, things will need to change. It’s clear that this whole debacle stemmed from an unhealthy... competition between agencies. So, all will be welcomed to join this, our larger agency. Out of courtesy and because I’m thankful to you for these services you have done me, however inadvertently, I wish, once again, to extend an invitation to you as first to join us.”

Lockwood frowned and narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly. “And once again, I’m going to have to respectively decline. Lockwood and co is an independent agency and always will be.”

“A shame. But no matter. You can continue to do your charming little things in your charming little house. I worry about you though, Anthony. This place is so _very_ _vulnerable_. It would be a shame if something happened to it. To your parent’s legacy.”

Lockwood’s jaw clenched. The threat was clear even if it wasn’t uttered.

Through the conversation, Sir Rupert had gone through the kitchen, inspecting it. He was dangerously close to where the skull was hidden, but thankfully he left it alone.

“I must admit that you do have a nice little set-up here. Like an adorable little miniature-agency. Yourself, the fearless leader. George Cubbins the faithful side-kick researcher. Beautiful Ms Munro as the darling secretary; not the best agent in the field I’ve heard, but I suppose she’s a pretty little thing to look at. Secretaries generally are,” she winked at me and I felt my temper flaring.

“You know nothing about Holly. You know nothing about any of us.” I sneered.

“Ah, and Lucy Carlyle.”

She put down her tea and walked around the table, “Truly a shame. The things we could accomplish together. What I couldn’t have turned you into.”

The hungry smile she turned my way, made my skin crawl even more than her words.

“Fittes House will just have to do without, I suppose. And speaking of Fittes House. Fancy seeing you here, Quill. Our little renegade. I’ve heard some things about you too. How you’ve been playing with things that don’t belong to you,”

She gave me a knowing look and then glanced at Lockwood with a small smirk, before returning to Quill, “I thought you could sink no lower. You had such potential, and you threw it all away. And for what?” she leaned against the table in front of him.

She smiled softly and spoke gently but there was something poisonous about it. She touched him lightly on the nose with a finger and then ran it across his cheekbone and down his jawline. He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed in an obvious attempt not to recoil.

I was about to jump out of my seat, but George put a hand on my arm, stopping me.

She grabbed Quill by the chin and forced him to look her in the eye. I was lucky to have cut my nails the night before because if they had been any longer, they would surely have drawn blood from my palm. That was how hard my hands were clenched. George’s hold tightened painfully on my arm, keeping me grounded and from charging Penelope Fittes, the most powerful woman in all of England. Sir Rupert must have read my anger too because before I knew it, he was standing right next to me.

“I want you to remember that you brought this upon yourself. Your insubordination disappointed me immensely, but _this?_ Your pension will be confiscated. I will have your reputation ruined. You will never be able to work for another reputable agency ever again.”

Lockwood stood and stared Penelope Fittes down. In less than a second, he had the point of a blade pointed at his throat. “That’s no worry, Quill. You can always work with us, we’re not reputable at all,” he ground out.

Quill didn’t say anything, and Ms Fittes roughly let go of his face.

“Indeed, you aren’t, Anthony,” she smirked, “Now, regrettably, I must go. I have a meeting with officials at DEPRAC about the future of the agencies in this little city. Exciting, isn’t it, Rupert?”

“Quite,” he winked at her and I shuddered.

She turned around and walked out of the kitchen, calling out a cheerful “Ta!” as if she hadn’t just threatened us.

Sir Rupert swiped George’s perfect sandwich off his plate and winked at us before following her.

Lockwood looked like he might charge the sandwich-thief, unarmed or not, but like George had done for me, Quill put a hand on Lockwood’s arm to hold him back.

None of us spoke until we heard her car drive away.

“Well, that was festive,” George commented, prompting Lockwood to laugh.

Quill shook his head in exasperation.

“They’ve told us quite clear, haven’t they?” Lockwood grinned, “Keep our noses out of their business? Show of hands – who thinks we should do the exact opposite?”

We all raised our hands, except Quill.

George scoffed “Your hands are trailing the floor, Kipps,”

Quill sighed heavily, “As much as I applaud your sudden interest in democracy Tony, I think it’s smart to discuss this before going ahead. Do you all realise what you’re getting yourselves into here?” he looked at each of us carefully.

Lockwood huffed impatiently, “I’m sure we can handle it.”

“You don’t know Penelope Fittes the way I do.” Quill rubbed his face hard as if to rid himself of her touch.

“I thought Fittes were good to their employees?” Holly asked in a small voice.

Quill scoffed. “They’re great. If you do good, they’ll be your best friends. The benefits are endless. But cross them and they will punish you. When you start, they’re all smiles and reassurances that they will take care of you, but the older you get and the better you are, you learn to stay in line or be punished hard and that’s just the company.”

He looked around at each of us in turn. “Penelope is absolutely unhinged. She’ll be sweet like honey and the next second you get slapped because your shirt is untucked, or she doesn’t like the way you smile. She is vicious. Before Ned came on my team, he used to be an assistant to her. She once had him beaten because he entered her flat two minutes early.”

Lockwood nodded thoughtfully, “And Sir Rupert? Where does he come in?”

Quill snorted. “He’s an utter psychopath. Teaches fencing and martial arts, but mostly that’s just an excuse to beat up kids,” he winced, “I trained under him. It was an absolute nightmare. He doesn’t take insults well. Back when you beat me at that contest,” he looked at Lockwood, “he gave me this,” he ran a finger down the white scar along his cheekbone, “and I had it _so_ bloody easy. You wouldn’t believe how many kids I’ve had to patch up after ‘training sessions’ since I became a medic.”

Lockwood frowned, “Why haven’t you done anything about it? Surely –“

“Do what, exactly? Gale is untouchable because Penelope favours him. And he’s smart. He usually targets specific kids. The ones whose families can’t afford to pull them out of the agency and won’t press charges. That and then the fact that he has several of the older agents and supervisors who are ready to pounce, no questions asked.” Quill sneered, “And now that she’s taken over Rotwell was well, Penelope practically owns DEPRAC, what with all their combined representatives.”

“What else can you tell us?” George asked.

“I’ll tell you everything I know.” Quill shrugged, “I’ll join you as well, but you all need to understand the danger involved in this. Do you, Tony?”

Lockwood took a deep breath and nodded stiffly.

“She didn’t come to threaten us without a reason. She’s up to something and it’s not going to be good. I won’t blame any of you if you want to back out.”

He looked around at all of us. I’d rarely seen him being so serious.

None of us responded. We were all in.

The tense atmosphere slowly abated, and we cleared the table. I picked the tea towel off the skull, twisted the valve and started doing dishes.

George was looking over the notes from the institute. I was forced to tell him where they were, when he turned his puppy dog eyes on me. The reason I caved was not because it was adorable, but because it was so deeply disturbing that I fail to describe it.

Holly was cleaning the thinking cloth while waiting for the kettle and Quill and Lockwood were having a quiet, yet intense discussion.

_“So, did Lockwood get to cop a feel last night?”_

I made a face at the skull, “You’re disgusting.”

_“Thank you. It’s a talent,”_

“One you work hard at?”

_“Nope – all natural, baby,”_

I couldn’t help the smile that stretched on my face and I splashed a bit of water on the jar.

_“Hey! Watch it! So – I noticed you had a moment earlier with the orangutan over there,”_

I looked over my shoulder at Quill.

“No! There was no moment!” I hissed.

 _“Riiight. So, you weren’t holding hands and staring adoringly into each other’s eyes,”_ the skull mocked.

“Stay out of it!”

_“Yeugh._ _If I still had a stomach, you’d be covered in vomit right about now.”_

“Would you rather be buried in the garden or thrown in the Thames?”

_“Fine, fine. Untwist your knickers. Or get carrot top to do it for you,”_

The skull gave me a lewd smile, so I flicked the jar with a finger, making the glass ring.

_“Ow! That hurt!_

“Serves you right”

_“And then_ _you had visitors, and you didn’t want them to notice little old me. Interesting. Who were they?”_

I made a face. “Penelope Fittes and her lapdog, Sir Rupert,”

_“Penelope Fittes eh? A relative to old Marissa then? How old do you reckon she is?”_

“Marissa Fittes’ granddaughter. Why do you want to know how old she is? She doesn’t seem like your type. Being alive and all.”

_“Oh, no reason.”_

It was a weirdly specific question to have no reason.

_“Just weird to see her again is all.”_

“Oh. You met Penelope as well?”

_“Never seen her in my life,”_

I raised an eyebrow.

_“... or death. No, I was talking about Marissa,”_

“Marissa? Do you mean they look alike?”

The skull let out a ghostly sigh, _“No. I mean Marissa.”_

“But that was Penelope,”

_“By all things unholy, how can you be this dense? That – thing – gave me the creeps and you know I’m not exactly faint of heart given my previous employer. I’m not entirely sure what she’s done exactly, but one thing I’m certain of, is that at its core. That there was Marissa bloody Fittes herself.”_

“You can’t be serious.”

_“Urgh. You want the specifics?”_

I snorted. “If you want me to believe you, yes.”

_“You know how you excite ghosts like me so much?”_

“You made that sound far creepier than it needed to be.”

_“No, trust me, I could be far more disturbing.”_

I made a face. I wasn’t sure I needed that sort of detail.

“Tell me what you mean.”

_“Right. So, ghosts are attracted to you. You excite them, you rile them up. But it’s not just that you’re some random shining light. At least not to me – you know; because I’m a Type Three. I see You, Lucy. I see the way that you are beneath all those fleshy bits.”_

I didn’t know why, but I suddenly felt a need to cover myself up with something.

“What does that have to do with Marissa Fittes?”

_“I’ve seen her too, haven’t I? Except those fleshy bits of hers are brand new.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why I suddenly got an urge to buy a golden retriever and call him Sir Rupert. It really is a great name for a dog.
> 
> Anyway, please write a comment before you leave!


	30. Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys

Luckily, we had all finished eating before Penelope Fittes arrived because a visit like that would have ruined anyone’s appetite. Except perhaps Cubbins who was still stuffing his face as he cleared things away.

Tony and I sat at the end of the table with our mugs, watching the others work. 

He leaned back in his chair and put one ankle on top of his knee. “Do you know anyone at Fittes House who might be able to update us with information? Maybe even act as a mole of sorts?”

I frowned a bit. I hoped he understood what he was requesting because it was no small favour.

“There’s Kate, but I can’t promise anything from her. She would be in a more dangerous position than any of us combined if she agrees. That has to be her choice. I won’t blame her if she refuses either.”

Tony pursed his lips, “Do you trust her?”

I nodded “I trust her as much as I trust my own family,”

“Yes, well. Will has always been rather fickle,” Tony argued with a nose wrinkle.

I snorted, but his expression didn’t change. “Tony… No, please tell me you’re not still sore about him ratting you out.”

He didn’t respond with anything other than a slight tightening of his jaw.

I laughed, perhaps a bit incredulously, “That was years ago! And what you did was incredibly dangerous. You were like six years old.”

“Yes. And agents can start as young as eight,” he argued with a shrug.

I shook my head “Come on. I can’t believe you’re still hung up on that. Besides, six isn’t eight. And knowing what you know now, would you seriously let a six-year-old go out there? Would you even let an eight-year-old into this agency even if it’s legal? Not to mention that you went out in the middle of the night, alone and unarmed like an idiot.”

“I was fine,” he grumbled.

I scoffed, “You were only fine because I found you when I did, and you know it. William did the right thing.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, “but I was still grounded for two months and had to sleep in my parent’s room for another four.”

I held back a laugh at his sulking. “Can you blame them? Just be happy they didn’t tie you to the radiator. That was my suggestion.” I gave him a little salute with the coffee mug.

His eyebrows scrunched together a bit, “ _Your_ suggestion. Why would you even be making suggestions?”

“Think, Tony. Out of both our families, how many people had Talents? There was you, and then there was me, that’s it,” I pointed between us, “I was eleven, alone in the streets in the middle of the night, trying to find you, you little shit. I felt like I had a right to pitch in after that.”

He wrinkled his nose. “But you were an agent by then. You were used to being out at night, weren’t you?”

“I hadn’t been an agent that long. I started late, remember? Mum wanted me in school first. I'd been cleared as an agent for barely half a year. I hadn’t even qualified for Second Grade and then you pulled a stunt like that. I was bloody terrified.” I told him with a scoff.

Tony rubbed the back of his neck. I resisted the urge to ruffle his hair.

“I didn’t know. I uh – I’m sorry.”

“That was a long time ago. You’re still just as reckless though.” I punched his shoulder lightly.

He sighed heavily. “Speaking of my recklessness -"

He cast a glance over at Lucy who seemed to be having a whispered argument with the skull.

“- could we go downstairs perhaps?” he bit his lip.

I shrugged and Tony led the way down the spiral staircase.

I looked around the room we entered. There had certainly been some changes.

“Where did you put all the boxes?” I asked.

He sent me a look that made me not want to ask again.

Before, when this had been his parents' workroom there were boxes and crates from floor to ceiling, full of all sorts of exotic and frankly weird items. Some were on display; some were packed away behind silver glass and others would be spread out over a long worktable along the far wall.

“These were in the mailbox when we came home yesterday.” He sighed and threw himself into an office chair. He looked exhausted now. I wondered how much he was just playing it up for his team and why he would let me of all people see him like this. Maybe because I'd already seen him at his worst or maybe it was because he didn’t care enough about me to bother making the effort.

He pulled a small silver bag out of a drawer and emptied it onto the desk that used to belong to his father. It was two watches, but not for the wrist or a traditional fob watch.

“Those are the sort of brooches nurses wear,” I pointed out.

Tony nodded. “Like the nurses on Lucy’s ward who were killed. There’s blood on them too. It would seem that Adelaide Winkman has sent them to haunt us. Literally.”

“Bloody hell,” I ran a hand down my face. “Does Lucy know?”

Tony blew out his cheeks. “Does she have to? It devastated her when it happened and I just don’t think she needs the reminder,”

“I know. But this is an escalation. Who knows what they'll do next? She ought to know so she can be prepared,” I reasoned.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “I know. I just don’t want her to worry.”

“You can’t protect her from those things.” I told him gently.

“I know. But I still want to,” he quietly confessed.

I smiled ruefully, “Me too.”

“I know.” He looked at me and something passed between us, followed by an awkward silence.

I didn’t know what else to say .

“Are you going to be alright?” Tony asked eventually.

I frowned a bit, “What do you mean?”

“All those things Fittes said.” He pursed his lips.

I shifted a bit and felt myself blush a little. “You know, it’s not like my family ever _needed_ me to work as an agent and I’m working at the company now. I'll help you in whichever way I can though. Don’t want payment either. Just let me come with you on harder cases from time to time so I don’t get rusty,” I shrugged.

He blushed a bit too and rubbed his neck. It was always awkward talking about money with people who had less of it. His family had been doing quite well before they died. They had received several large grants to fund their expeditions and research and neither of his parents came from nothing. It didn’t take a degree in accounting though, to understand that Tony had to be working hard to pay the bills. It was incredible that he had even managed to keep the house so far. It was admirable.

He cleared his throat, “Right. What about, you know, safety and stuff. We have three people defending this place, but you live alone, don’t you? And you must have an employment record at Fittes so they know where you live,”

I shrugged a bit. “I’ve been thinking about moving anyway. In the end, Clerkenwell isn’t the greatest place to live and I really only bought the house because it was annoying to have more transport after going to the furnaces at night, you know. Don’t have to do that anymore.”

“So, what, now you want to be closer to the offices? Mayfair?” he raised an eyebrow.

“I'm not sure. I was thinking about going somewhere with a bit more breathing room at some point, but maybe a flat in Mayfair wouldn’t be bad for now.”

“Marylebone isn’t too far either, you know,” he pointed out, while looking anywhere else but at me.

I grinned “Why Tony would you like me to live closer?”

He rolled his eyes dramatically at me, “What I’m saying is that it could be a smart move. You know, strategically, if we’re doing this. We have no idea how long it’s going to take and if one of our places is under attack, it might be smart to have another place to go, relatively close by.”

I scoffed, “I think you just like having me around.”

“And I think that you’re just full of yourself. By the way, am I right in thinking that being a redhead might be dangerous business once Leopold Winkman wakes up and identifies his attacker?”

I blew out my cheeks which I could feel were turning pink.

“Quill,” he shook his head at me, “you beat a man into a coma.”

I sighed and looked at my boots. They needed a polish.

“If you’re asking me if I regret it, then the answer is no.”

“I’m not asking that. I just want you to be careful. The Winkmans aren’t going to let it go.”

“I’m aware,” I snorted. “Still worth it.”

He gave me a small smirk, “I can imagine.”

“I bet you can,” I nodded.

Another awkward silence ensued.

The herd of elephants in the room was large enough to start an entire breeding programme.

“Why did you try to recruit Lucy?” Tony asked somewhat out of the blue.

“What?”

“If things were so bad at Fittes as you said. Why would you invite her to join them?”

I smirked at him “Well, I wasn’t inviting her to join Fittes. I was inviting her to join my team. There’s a difference. I take good care of my people. For instance, Kate and Bobby never trained under Gale. I made sure to train them personally. As for why, I should think that was obvious,” I shrugged.

Tony’s jaw tightened a bit, and a scoff escaped him.

“She’s the best bloody agent I have ever seen or even heard of in my entire career, you twit.”

He blushed, having obviously been thinking something else.

I sighed heavily. It was probably best to steer clear of any more discussions of Lucy. I had a feeling that whatever fragile truce we had going on could easily be broken somewhere in that particular minefield.

“I'll speak to Kate,” I assured him, “but as I said, I can’t make any promises.”

“Do you think she can avoid throwing suspicion on herself?”

I grinned at him, “You've met Kate, yes?”

He shrugged and crossed his arms in front of him, “Obviously, on a few cases,”

“What if I told you that she has an excellent sense of humour and sometimes snorts when she laughs?”

He raised a disbelieving eyebrow at me.

“Don’t tell her that I told you about that last bit. My point is that she’s great at the whole Fittes façade. Her compartmentalisation skills are excellent to say the least,”

He still looked sceptical.

I sighed. “Tony, do you trust me?” I challenged, looking him directly in the eye.

He opened and closed his mouth several times. I waited patiently to hear what he tried to formulate.

In the end, his lips pressed together in a hard line and he gave me a single decisive nod. Good enough.

“If you trust me, then trust Kate. I don’t doubt her capabilities and I know where loyalty lies.

Pizza.

My feelings about pizza were somewhat ambivalent.

I wasn’t exactly fanatic when it came to my diet, but I liked to eat well to get all the nutrients my body needed and without all the useless things that clogged your veins and made you fat. Generally speaking, I took great care with what I put in my mouth.

But then there was pizza.

Pizza, with all its warm, melted cheese and the oh so perfect crust that was neither too hard and dry or too soft, but just enough to crunch a bit.

I tried to resist, but Kate knew the perfect place where they made the perfect pizza and try as I might, temptation would always get the best of me. As soon as I’d decided to eat healthy, Kate had vowed to corrupt me. And she was bloody excellent at it.

“I can’t believe this sofa,”

While she was a tad more relaxed in private, Kate couldn’t quite let go entirely, which was why she was sitting on the edge of my new, otherwise extremely comfortable sofa, with her back straight and legs crossed at the ankles. At least she hadn’t asked for cutlery for the pizza.

“Well, maybe it doesn’t believe in you either.” I shrugged and slumped further into the cushions which I had covered with a blanket, not to get pizza on them.

“But it’s not even leather. And it’s even _soft_ ,” she poked the armrest for emphasis.

“To be honest, I wasn’t entirely certain either, but I’ve grown rather fond of it actually.”

She looked at me with and eyebrow raised. “Something’s bothering you.”

I winced. I had been putting off the conversation and now we’d reached the end of the evening.

“I can trust you, right? I know I can trust you, but can you please just confirm that to me?”

She turned fully towards me and frowned a bit. “Of course, you can trust me. What’s going on?”

“You know how I went on that case, with Lockwood and co?” I started slowly.

Her only response was a slight shrug.

“Do you also realise that the collapse of the Rotwell Institute completely coincidentally happened at the same time?”

She closed her eyes and sighed, “What did you do, Quill?”

And I told her. I told her about Aldbury Castle and the cluster there and the Creeping Shadow that Tony and Lucy had seen. I told her about how Rotwell had threatened us and how we had decided to raid the place. I told her what we found there and how it related to Aickmere’s.

“Tony and Lucy went through the circle.”

“The circle that was leading-"

“To the other side, yes.”

“God, I can’t even imagine,” she breathed.

I shook my head, “I thought that they were dead for a while there.”

“But what happened to Steve Rotwell then?”

“He uh – he fell. He’s dead now, I’m fairly sure. And then we blew the place up.”

“Just like that?” she asked incredulously, “You just casually blow up buildings now?”

I sighed, “Where Tony is, mayhem generally follows,”

“So, I suppose that’s what the merger is about,” she added thoughtfully.

“You were told about that?”

“We were briefed this morning. They’re distributing the Rotwell agents between all the teams.”

I nodded. “Penelope isn’t going to let those people go, even if the Rotwell board gets their shit together. She’s integrating the agents into the company.”

“Something like that,” she shrugged.

“She stopped by at Tony’s, the other morning. I was having breakfast there.”

Kate's eyes rose high on her forehead, “What, she just stopped by for a cuppa?”

“Well, I suppose she did have tea. But that wasn’t the true reason for her visit.”

She rolled her eyes, “Then what was it? Why do you always have to be so dramatic?”

I scoffed at her accusation, “She wanted to gloat, I think, primarily. And then to threaten of course and to warn us to stay out of her business.”

“And so of course, like an intelligent human being you said ‘sure – not my circus; not my monkeys’ and then backed the hell off?”

I winced, “Well, she threatened me first. And then she confiscated my pension.”

Kate frowned, “Can she even do that? Legally?”

“At the moment, I think Penelope Fittes is powerful enough that she could dance naked through Buckingham Palace without any consequence.”

“Eew, Quill.”

I shuddered, “You don’t know half,”

“But then what?”

“Then Tony decided that rather than backing away slowly, it would be more fun to poke the bear with a stick,”

Kate rubbed her face, “How is that boy even still alive?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I shook my head, “Anyway, then all the others of course agreed to poke the bear with a stick, but I said, ‘hold on, do you realise how dangerous it is to poke a bear with a stick?’ And now we’re apparently poking a bear. With a stick,” I finished with a sigh.

“I don’t quite follow,”

“We’re going to investigate Penelope Fittes.”

Kate chuckled insecurely and looked at me as if she were considering whether or not to take me to the doctor.

“I’m not pulling your leg. It’s serious.”

Her half-smile fell and was replaced by a worried frown, “How are you even planning on doing that?”

“Well,” I bit my lip. I hated asking her, “We were thinking that it might be good to have some inside –“

“No. Absolutely not,” she cut me off.

“It’s not about missions or anything like that. It’s just for information. You know if you hear something or see something that might be useful to us,”

“You’ve been hanging around those nutters far too much. Their recklessness has rubbed off on you, I can’t believe you’re going to do this; I can’t believe you would ask _me_ to do this,”

I raised my hands, trying to placate her, “Not if you don’t want to. I would never pressure you to do this if you don’t want to and I won’t judge you for saying no.”

“Fine.”

I smiled gently “Okay, fine. We won’t talk about it again, I promise,”

“No. Fine, as in yes, I will join your band of merry men. But intel only,” she raised her index finger in front of my face for emphasis.

I felt my smile stretching. “Maybe you could come with me sometime. Say hi to the rest, so you can get to know the team,”

She looked at me like I had asked her to lick Cubbins’ feet.

I huffed a small laugh, “Alright, but you’re missing out. Holly’s waffles are delicious,”

She looked at me shrewdly “Holly? As in Holly Munro? That’s new,”

I rolled my eyes, “I don’t think I’m Munro's type.”

“Why?” she asked. “Is it because you’re ginger?”

I laughed loudly, “That _so_ isn’t what I meant,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the awkwardness between the boys and the friendship between Quill and Kate.  
> Remember to please leave a comment to tell me what you thought of the chapter <3


	31. An Offer You Can't Refuse

“Holly!” I screamed.

This was a nightmare of epic proportions. We had known that the Visitor would potentially be problematic. George had researched and found that a murder had taken place at the address. Trouble was that the previous owner apparently hadn’t been satisfied by a simple little murder but had in fact been a serial killer.

Women came from all angles and I had half a mind to just burn the house to the ground, but I gathered we couldn’t afford that, so while Lockwood and George were fending off the ghosts, Holly and I were looking for any sort of place where sources were likely stored.

I was trying to Listen, when I saw a blue looking lady, fast approaching Holly who was on her knees examining the old floorboards.

The boys were being overwhelmed and couldn’t help and I didn’t get there fast enough with my rapier.

I watched helplessly as the ectoplasm connected with the exposed part of Holly’s leg, between her pants and her shoes.

She screamed in agony.

Then I was there, fending off the ghost with a strong ward to ensure that it didn’t cause further damage.

“ _It’s no coat hanger, but I suppose ghost touch is another way to get rid of her. Not very creative, but beggars can’t be choosers, eh?”_

“Shut up!” I barked. “Why didn’t you warn me about this?”

_“It’s not like I knew there would be that many. I’ll tell you this though, the Sources are all in the same place. That’s why I couldn’t tell how many there are. They’re all mushed up. Like those sardines Cubbins likes to eat,”_

I searched harder than before, knocking on the walls to try and find a hollow spot.

I heard a shout, a thud and a yelp.

Then George crumpled to the ground with a nauseating cracking sound as his head hit the floor.

Now it was only Lockwood cutting and slicing his way through the apparitions.

The exit was blocked due to the sheer number of them.

I _had_ to find those Sources, or we would be dead in minutes.

I begged to every god I’d ever heard of that the skull was right and they would all be in the same place.

George had hit his head when he fell, but it was in a strange downwards angle.

Then I noticed that the other end of the floorboard was sticking up slightly. I threw myself in that direction, pushed George to the side and ripped the floorboard off entirely.

And there.

A clump of hair. All of them in separate neat braids.

I heard Lockwood make a hissing sound above me and realised that they’d gotten him too.

The air was knocked out of my lungs when he landed on me and I realised that the idiot boy had taken a ghost touch for me. I only hoped it wasn’t too serious.

I strained to pull the silver net out of my pocket, but it wasn’t easy to shift with Lockwood’s weight on top of me.

_“Great, now wonder boy is out too. Good thing you have a spare. We’re much closer to starting our own agency too,”_

I didn’t bother answering.

I heard the angry whispers of the apparitions around me. They were closing in again.

Eventually I managed to pull out the net and I didn’t hesitate to throw it over the many strands of differently coloured braids.

Everything fell silent except for Holly’s whimper and mine and Lockwood’s heavy breathing.

“Help. I need to get you help,” I wheezed.

Lockwood sat up to give me room to wiggle free, but he groaned and slumped back down as soon as I was out.

He was clutching his arm and I sprinted to where I’d noticed the phone before.

Why did the blinking lights have to be so sharp? I knew why of course; DEPRAC and the ambulances needed to be seen in traffic, but they weren’t driving now. They were parked in front of the beautiful townhouse we had been working at. I thought it might be Georgian. Or Victorian. I didn’t know the difference entirely.

Three ambulances. For all my three teammates.

I was sitting on the steps leading into the house when Barnes and his moustache came walking towards me.

“Why is it always you?” he grumped. I assumed that was a rhetorical question. He had to know us well enough by now, not to be surprised.

“They might want to investigate the previous owner of the house further. Some of those ghosts were wearing jeans,” I informed him and took a sip of the hot chocolate one of the paramedics had been kind enough to give me.

He nodded, “I spoke to the medics and all your friends will be fine. They’ll need to spend the night for observation though. You can’t go with them.”

“I figured as much,” I sighed.

Barnes looked around and cleared his throat, “Between you and me, I think maybe it’s better if you weren’t alone at the moment. We’re hearing rumours about increased activity from the Winkmans. And from... other places too,”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Is there uh – Is there any where you could go?” he asked. “I could give you a lift.”

I frowned. “I suppose,”

Did I trust Barnes? It seemed like it was hard to trust anyone these days. Especially adults. I realised that I did. For as much as he cursed at us and his general unpleasantness, at least he was honest with us and I appreciated that.

“Clerkenwell maybe?”

He frowned at me “If you want the police to investigate, you can’t destroy that Source. They’ll need it for evidence.”

“That’s not what I’m going there for.”

_“No, you’re going to see your side piece,”_

Barnes looked at me carefully, “Alright. If you want, you can sign the Source over to me and I’ll make sure to give it to them.”

I nodded. I frankly didn’t have the energy to deal with it. Barnes pulled out a couple forms and I filled them out. The nature of the apparition(s), description of the Source, etc. I checked off where it said, ‘suspicion of foul play', signed it and handed it to Barnes who signed it as well. Then it disappeared somewhere inside that briefcase of his.

“Just a moment,” I jogged to the nearest ambulance which I knew Lockwood was in.

I knocked on the door even if it was open and Lockwood looked up from his place on the gurney. His coat was draped across his legs and his shirt was open with electrodes attached to his chest. A paramedic was administering the adrenaline and already his foot was bouncing slightly with the excess energy it produced. The heartrate steadily increased on the monitor too.

I sighed disappointedly when I saw his swollen hand. He'd done that for me.

“George and Holly are going to be fine,” I informed him.

“Thank heaven,” he breathed and laid back down again.

“But what happened to George? He wasn’t ghost-touched,”

He looked a bit sheepish, “One of them was going for his head and I did a lunge. Unfortunately, I may or may not have hit his temple with my elbow in the process and knocked him out,”

I blinked, “Seriously, Lockwood? How hard was that lunge exactly? No, never mind. I just needed to tell you that I’m not allowed to go with you to the hospital.”

“Go to Quill’s,” he responded immediately, “You shouldn’t be alone,”

“That’s what I was planning, actually,” I shrugged.

He bit his lip and nodded. “Will you tell him about – you know?” he cast a sideways glance at the paramedic.

“Of course, I will. Sooner rather than later, I should think.”

“Right, yes.” He huffed a small laugh, “Yes, of course.”

_“It’s fine enough when it’s his own idea but he seems a teensy bit put out that you already wanted to. Wonder why?”_

I cleared my throat “I’ll probably stay there until you lot are better,”

Lockwood nodded, but didn’t say anything else.

I patted his leg and gave him a small smile. He returned it with a gentle one of his own.

“Call me or come pick me up when you’re discharged, yeah? But not alone. Be careful.”

He scoffed, “I’m not the one going out alone right now,”

“Neither am I,” I tried to smile, but it probably turned more into a grimace. “I have Barnes with me,”

Lockwood’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead, “Barnes? Our Barnes? As in Montagu Barnes?”

I nodded, “He’s giving me a lift,”

“Well, that’s… mighty nice of him.”

_“Is he going to be jealous of the walrus now too?”_

“I thought so. I should probably go now though, before he goes on without me,”

“Of course. Be careful.” He gave me a small wave.

“You too,” I sent him a last smile before stepping back out of the ambulance.

Barnes was standing around a bit away, talking to another DEPRAC-agent, but when he saw me, he excused himself.

He gestured at the large, official looking DEPRAC-car he had arrived in. I don’t know why, but I felt as if I’d done something wrong as I slid into the leather seat in the passenger’s side. The lights were still blinking away, but thankfully he put them out before driving.

It was stifling hot in the car, compared to the fresh air I’d been enjoying outside. The atmosphere was stifling too. I was certainly grateful for the lift, but the awkwardness of it was so thick you could cut through it with a knife.

What should I do? Should I try to small talk? Should I ask him about the case? Question him about the things he’d been hearing?

“Woodbridge Street, I assume?” He interrupted my panicked thoughts, and I jumped a little.

“I uh – yes. Thank you.”

The awkward silence filled the car again.

Thankfully, before I knew it, we were there. It wasn’t midnight yet and lights were on inside.

“Look, Carlyle. Be careful. Things are going to change, and I get the feeling that none of us are going to like it. I’ve only heard bits and pieces, but things are going to get hard, especially for small scale agencies. Right now, though, I reckon the greatest threat for you is Adelaide Winkman. Leopold is breathing on his own now and I heard that he showed signs of waking up yesterday.”

“Thank you for telling me,” I nodded and got out of the car.

“Tell him in there too,” he pointed at Quill’s house.

“I will,” I promised and closed the car door.

He nodded and drove off.

I didn’t hesitate to cross the road and knock on the door.

I didn’t have to wait long for it to open, only it wasn’t Quill on the other side.

Kate Godwin stood there in all her perfect, blonde glory. She wasn’t wearing her Fittes uniform, but a rather fashionable dark blue trench coat and black leather boots.

I tried not to look down at my dirty parka and torn leggings, but I was painfully aware of them.

When she saw me, her face lit up with a bright smile and had she not looked stony-faced as usual when she opened the door, I could have sworn it was an entirely different person.

“Lucy! It’s so good to see you!”

“Uh – you too,” I blinked at her.

“Kate?” I heard Quill shout from the kitchen, “Was someone at the door? Did you check who it was before opening?” I heard his footsteps coming closer, “I swear, you daft bint, if you were killed because of something so stupid as –“ he grumbled as he entered the hall before stopping short.

“She doesn’t look like she’s in a killing mood,” Kate quipped.

_“No, but now that she mentions it -”_

I jostled the rucksack a bit.

Quill stood, frozen in the doorway with wide eyes, but my movement seemed to reanimate him. ”Lucy! You’re – hi! What’re you – come in!” he smiled, and his cheeks went bright pink, clashing with the coppery tone of his hair.

Kate looked like the cat that had eaten the fattest canary known to man.

“Don’t mind me, I was leaving anyway,” she grinned, “See you next week, Quill!” she called over her shoulder and waved as she left through the door.

Quill locked it after her.

“I uh – that was Kate,” he stated unnecessarily and scratched his ear.

“I saw that,” I said, equally unnecessarily.

He looked around a bit, “Wait, where are the others?”

“What, am I not enough for you?” I teased with a smile.

“You’re always enough,” he mumbled.

His face went an even brighter pink and so did mine.

“I just mean, that I enjoy your visits, you know,” he continued quickly and bit his lip.

“Me too,” I breathed.

 _“You disgust me,”_ the skull seethed.

“Shut up,” I snapped at my rucksack and put it on the floor, none too gently.

Quill frowned a bit before his eyes brightened.

“Oh! You have the skull with you. I thought – never mind. Just bring him along,”

_“Wait, what?”_

I shrugged, “Why not?”

I pulled the jar out of my rucksack and brought it with me as we went through the house.

“But where are the others then? You didn’t come alone, did you? It’s much too dangerous,”

“I uh – Barnes drove me here.”

Quill stopped so abruptly that I walked into him and almost dropped the skull.

“Barnes? Why would Barnes – is everything okay?” he looked at me with worry.

“We had a serial killer case. We had only expected the ghost of one murder victim but there were twenty, maybe. Holly and Lockwood were ghost touched.”

He frowned “Are they alright? And what about Cubbins?”

“They’ll be fine. George was knocked out by Lockwood though. He tried to save him from a ghost, but ended up clipping him on the temple with his elbow in the process,”

Quill burst into laughter.

“God, that sounds idiotic,” he chuckled as his laughter slowly died down, “I would have paid good money to see that”

_“I knew I should have brought a camera”_

“I wouldn’t know how silly it looked, as I was too busy saving our lives,” I poked him in the ribs.

“I’m sorry. I was just tidying up in the kitchen. Do you want to come with, or do you want to watch TV or something?”

“I think I’ll come with you. I was never really fond of television,”

“Alright,” he shrugged, “What about him?” he pointed at the skull under my arm.

“Him? You mean the skull?” My eyebrows rose and I realised that I’d never even really considered what he actually wanted.

I raised the jar to look at it, “What do you say, skull? What do you want? Wait, have you even watched TV before?”

The skull was strangely quiet, _“I uh – no. I haven’t. Haven’t had the opportunity.”_

“I think I have some tapes lying around if he wants to watch a film,”

I almost giggled at the thought of the skull watching a cartoon. Maybe something with princesses and talking unicorns. I doubted those were the sort of films Quill had though.

He went to open a cabinet and inside it was the television. In another cabinet next to it were neat rows of tapes.

“What do you think he’d like?” Quill asked, perusing the things he had.

“Do you have any horror maybe?”

He raised an eyebrow, “I thought you had horror enough at work?”

“Sure, I do, but _he_ can’t seem to get horror enough,” I gestured at the skull. I’d put the jar on the coffee table, “That one maybe,” I pointed at a cassette.

Quill huffed a small laugh, but he put it on, nonetheless.

I adjusted the skull’s angle, so it had full view of Quills large television and the film started.

I heard a sharp intake of breath, but it wasn’t Quill. I wondered if it was just a general sound of surprise whether you were breathing or not.

 _“This is… different,”_ the skull trailed off distractedly. The plasm swirled in the jar and the green light that shone from it went up and down in intensity. I was quite fascinating.

I chuckled a bit. “Let’s go in the kitchen then,”

I’d never actually seen the film, but I knew of it. It was an American one about gangsters and it was supposedly very violent; exactly what I figured the skull might enjoy.

There were two pizza boxes on the table, and I didn’t hesitate to snatch a leftover slice from one of them.

“I assume the rest of the team are all in the hospital then?” Quill asked as he put the kettle on.

I nodded and leaned against the counter, “Just for observation, probably. Holly took a touch to the leg and Lockwood got himself touched on the hand. George might have a concussion. I hope it’s okay for me to just drop in like this. I didn’t know where else to go,” I put the slice down and looked at my sock-clad feet. I wiggled my toes a little

I was startled when another pair of feet came close enough to touch mine and I felt his hand under my chin as he pushed my face up to meet his warm, green eyes and gentle smile.

“You’ll always be welcome with me, Lucy. It doesn’t have to be an emergency for you to be here,” he told me softly.

We stood there for several heartbeats. I wasn’t sure if I was even breathing.

“Okay,” I whispered eventually before clearing my throat, “Actually, I needed to talk to you about something.”

He backed off with a smile and went to make tea.

“Me too. I don’t know how much Tony told you; I know he isn’t the most forthcoming person, but I spoke to Kate and she agreed to gather information for us as a spy of sorts,”

I frowned, “No, he hadn’t said anything, but isn’t that incredibly dangerous? Will she be alright?”

Quill smiled fondly at me, “If anyone can do it, it would be her. She knows it’s going to be dangerous, but she agreed to do it anyway.”

“I just hope that what I’ve found out won’t complicate matters.” I bit my lip.

“How would that be?”

I ran a hand through my hair, “Penelope Fittes isn’t Penelope Fittes. She’s Marissa.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s _Marissa_ Fittes. The skull spoke with her before. He recognised her.” I nodded towards the living room from where a green light was blinking with every sound of gunshots.

“But Penelope doesn’t look anything like Marissa,” Quill pointed out with a frown and gave me my tea.

I grimaced a bit “The skull says it recognised her from what’s beneath her uh… fleshy bits,”

He laughed, but he had taken a sip of his own tea which he had to spit out in the sink, not to spill it all over himself.

“Fleshy bits?” he chuckled.

“That’s what the skull said,” I shrugged.

“And he’s sure?”

I nodded, “He says so,”

“And what about you? Do you trust him?” Quill asked.

And that was the big question, wasn’t it?

“I’m not entirely sure.” I pursed my lips.

Quill shrugged, “I guess there’s one way to find out,”

“How?” I snorted,

He grinned, “Why, we pay our respects of course,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love making the skull's little background comments.  
> But yeah - a little bit of everything in this chapter.  
> I feel very insecure about writing action, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. 
> 
> Please leave a comment before you leave - what do you think?
> 
> Personally, I find Quill, caught off guard absolutely adorable. And the skull watching TV as well.


	32. Responsibility and Other Nasty Things

“She’ll hate me if I wake her up, won’t she?”

The jar with the skull stood in the shadow on the corner of the coffee table I was sitting on. It gave a small pulse of light.

In front of me, Lucy was sleeping on the sofa. She was lying on her belly, hugging my pillow and drooling a bit on it too. The duvet covered the most of her, except for her bare feet that were sticking out.

“Think we’ll let her sleep, yeah?”

I grabbed the jar and brought it with me in the kitchen. I put it on the table and went about preparing my breakfast.

When I finally sat down, it recoiled from my chia pudding.

I rolled my eyes. “Come on. It’s food. It’s good. Healthy.”

It created a face with the plasm and mimicked my eyeroll.

“Honestly,” I shook my head and began eating. “I actually had an idea; I know you can do that blinky-thing with your plasm there –“

The jar filled the kitchen with sharp green blinking lights that almost blinded me.

“Yes – that,” I chuckled “I was thinking we could try something. Like, either make a face like you did before and nod or blink once for ‘yes’ and two times or shake head for ‘no’ okay?”

It blinked two times.

“Very funny. Did you enjoy the film last night?”

The skull didn’t respond for a long time before making a single blink so fast that I almost missed it.

“There are two more in the same series. I’ve got the third at home, but my brother borrowed the sequel. Would you like me to get it for you?”

Again, a long waiting time and then a small blink, this time with a low light like it was reluctant to admit it. I smiled a bit.

“I’ll get on that then.”

I looked at the clock and sighed. I had to go to work.

“Could you please tell Lucy to help herself to whatever food is in the fridge?” I grimaced, “Can’t promise that there’s much she’ll like, but there’s still a little leftover pizza from last night.”

The skull made a face this time and used it to make a very rude expression which wouldn’t be possible for an ordinary human. I figured that I’d probably tested its limitations enough. I put it back on the table in the living room and jutted down a quick note for Lucy before kissing her temple.

“See you later, mate, I’ll be back around five-ish. I’ll try to get out sooner, okay?” I whispered at the skull and gave it a small wave. It might have been a trick of the light, but I thought I detected an almost imperceptible blink from the depths in there.

I got my briefcase from the hall and went out into the early morning light.

I didn’t know how my parents thought I could pull this off. I kept looking at the others around the office and it felt as if all the looks I got in return were resentful. At Fittes I had always worked hard. I’d fought my way up and in spite of starting late, I had made one hell of a career, first as an agent and then as one of the youngest supervisors and later as the youngest team leader in Fittes history.

But this?

This felt like theft. Even if leadership technically already belonged to me by heritage, I hadn’t _earned_ it, and _everyone_ knew it. Including myself.

I had paced the entire building for most of the morning before barging into my mother’s office.

She cut an intimidating figure as she sat there behind the large mahogany desk that used to belong to my grandfather. Her brown hair was in a tight bun and the carnelian earrings my dad had given her last Christmas stood in bright contrast to the black dress she was wearing.

She quickly folded up the letter she had been reading and put it in a drawer in her desk.

“How long do you think before you retire?” I questioned and continued my pacing on her carpet.

“Are you in a hurry to take over suddenly?” she raised an eyebrow at me.

I huffed a small laugh, “I was thinking more along the lines of you staying forever. I can’t do this, mum.”

“Well, that’s just silly,” she decided and returned to do more paperwork.

I scoffed, “It’s not – mum, I’m serious. This isn’t working.”

“And why would you think so?” she asked, not looking up from whatever she was doing.

“I – the others, they don’t respect me.”

“Is anyone giving you any trouble?”

“No, nothing like that, but I can tell that they don’t like me. They don’t respond to me the same way as they do to you,” I wrinkled my nose, realising how whiny I sounded.

She sighed heavily and looked up at me. “Honestly, Quill, you’ve barely been here for a month. To them, you’re an outsider. It was different for me; I grew up inside the company. I’ve helped out in every single department here. Can you blame them? And you skiving off isn’t helping matters either. They get the impression of a spoiled boy who only got his position because he’s his parents’ son. I’m coming to think that they might be right.”

I was about to protest but she cut me off with a raised hand.

“You need to stop this agent nonsense and invest your time and energy here, Quill. I had really hoped that you were finished and that we wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore,” she sighed wearily. “You can’t be an agent forever. It’s time you thought about the future. It’s too dangerous.”

She got up and walked over to me. Her face was pinched, and I didn’t understand why.

She started fixing my tie.

“I know you’ve been helping Tony. But I worry about you too. What if something happened? How would – Tony needs help. He needs support, but maybe there are other ways to help him. He’s in over his head, that boy.”

I frowned. “What are you talking about? His company is doing well. His team is incredibly competent.”

She swallowed and brushed off some invisible dust on my lapel. “I only mean that he ought to be careful. We _all_ need to be more careful.”

She was being weird. I nodded slowly. “Alright.”

“And no more skiving off. I won’t hesitate to ground you if I must.”

I scoffed, “Mum, I’m a grown man. I have my own house. You can’t ground me,”

“Do you really want to test me on that?” she asked with a raised brow.

I ran a hand through my hair. “I promise I’ll try my best but if Tony or anyone else needs me I’ll help them.”

She smiled sadly. “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t. Just promise me you’ll be careful. I don’t want to lose any more children.”

“Of course, I’m careful,” I lied.

She looked at me as if she saw right through me which she probably did. She might not have had any Talent, but I could swear that woman was psychic.

“I don’t know what you’ve been doing to help Tony. But I’d love for you to tell me. Particularly how your face has come to look as it does. Last time I looked like that; I’d been in a bar fight,” she pointed out.

I looked at her incredulously. “No, mum! I haven’t been in a bar fight!”

“And how was last night? Did you have fun with Katherine?”

“With Kathe- with Kate, yeah, I uh – yes. Just lounging about, really.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, and I cursed the unfortunate complexion I had inherited from my dad because I knew that my blush could have been spotted from the bloody continent and it would give her a very wrong idea about what was going on.

“Be sure to greet her from me next time you _lounge about_ alright? Remember to stop by your dad’s office as well.”

With that I was dismissed.

I walked down the halls in search of my dad. What he did for the company exactly, I didn’t know. He didn’t have a title as far as I knew. He was good with people though, so maybe that was the big idea. He kept people happy. Whenever there were conflicts, he would sweep in with his calm demeanour and ceramic tea-set and mediate.

He was also the one my mum sent to deal with obstinate clients, and once when I was a boy, an irate priest who had threatened to burn the offices to the ground when we had published a novel supposedly containing some quite heretical stuff about Jesus.

How the hell he had done it, I didn’t know but I remembered him winking at me as the police officers pulled the holy man out of the building while he thanked my dad profusely and promised to beg God for forgiveness.

I knocked lightly on his door before entering.

He looked up and gave me a warm smile when he saw me.

“Quill! Come in – look at this,” he shoved a pile of drawings into my hands, “What do you think?”

“Uh… What are these?”

“Your mum felt like we ought to try some new artists for covers. These are all suggestions that came in last week. It’s for that one with the tree. You know, the one with the axe murderer.”

I leafed through them quickly.

“Who did you ask for these? The local primary?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

He smiled widely. “That’s what your mum said.” His eyes twinkled behind his tortoiseshell glasses. Knowing him right, he probably _had_ commissioned them from 6-year-olds.

I put the papers back on the desk and sat down on the sofa he had in his office.

“Do you really think I can do this?”

I couldn’t look up at him.

I heard him sigh softly.

“Quill. Maybe the question you should ask yourself is whether you really _want_ to do this.”

I leaned back in the sofa and ran a hand down my face.

“Does it matter? Someone has to do it, right?”

I looked at him and he gave a small shrug. “Do they?”

I scoffed. “You can’t mean that we should just sell the company when you go in pension. Mum would-“

“Your mum can’t get her way all the time. And some day when your mum and I are dead and gone-“

“Dad –“

“- you’re the one who lives on with what? A job you hate?”

“I don’t hate it. I just don’t know how to do it.”

“Quill,” he scoffed quietly, “Do you really expect this sort of knowledge will come through osmosis?”

I sighed. “You just make it look so effortless.”

He smiled gently and sat down in the armchair in front of me.

“Your mum grew up in these halls. I started working here when I was sixteen. We’re meant for this. We never wanted anything else. Try to change your perspective. Rather than seeing it as something you _must_ do, think of it as something you’re trying out. Try to let go of that pressure on your shoulders. If you do end up hating it and you don’t want to carry on with the business anyways, I’ll help handling your mother.”

“I just don’t want to disappoint her.”

He shrugged, “There are other ways you can make her happy,” he grinned widely at me.

I gave him a deadpan look. “No.”

His smile widened even further. “Don’t worry, I’m just teasing. But I mean it. Neither me nor your mum are planning to retire for another twenty years at least. You have plenty of time to figure things out. You could even work somewhere else for a while,” he shrugged. “Or take an education. Education is always a good idea. You’re incredibly young to be handling this sort of responsibility.”

I frowned. “Mum just seemed rather adamant that I start taking things seriously here.”

“She’s probably just excited, that’s all.”

“No, she was more anxious than anything.”

He shook his head. “I’m sure it’s nothing. But if you really mean that you want to get more serious in the company, maybe it would be a good idea for you to take a tour of sorts around the organisation.”

“I know the company, dad.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yes,” he conceded, “But do you know how each individual part of it _works_? Maybe it would be good for you to stay in each department for a few weeks or months to understand the mechanics of it better. That will give you better insight into the way the company works, which will give you more confidence. You’ll also get to know the employees better. Just… maybe you should consider wearing something else.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I looked down at myself. I loved that suit.

“Nothing. It’s a beautiful suit. Very appropriate for the head of a company. But you’re not the head yet. Right now, you’re the one who needs to get to know people and wearing an expensive suit sets you apart. That’s a good thing when you’re the boss, but a bad thing when trying to establish genuine connections. You need people to like you right now. Don’t intimidate them before you even get near them.”

I pulled at my hair in frustration.

“So what? Jeans and a t-shirt?”

He only shrugged. “I didn’t say that. I think maybe it would be better if you took the rest of the day off.”

“It’s barely past noon. Mum'll have a fit.”

“Doesn’t matter. Go home for the day. Tomorrow, you and I will go to the archives and you can start your internship, or whatever we’re going to call it, there.”

“I – okay,”

“And lose the suit.”

“Fine,” I grumbled with an eye roll.

“Don’t you look dapper,” Tony grunted groggily.

“Not quite as flashy as you. What’s with the sunglasses? It’s daytime.”

He groaned, “It’s the bloody sadists here. They insisted on putting me in this room. There are like seven death glows. Be happy you can’t see them. I'm going blind here.”

“I imagine. How are things? When do you think you’ll be discharged?”

“I dunno,” he slurred.

“Tony, did they give you something?” I laughed and grabbed the clipboard at the end of his bed. Indeed, they did. Enough to sedate a baby elephant.

“Tried to run away last night. But ‘parrently ghost touch spread a bit.”

He showed me the thumb and forefinger of his good hand, pressed together.

I nodded. “Can I see?”

He unsteadily reached his arm towards me.

The hand was in a bandage that reached the middle of his forearm, but blue streaks stretched from it all the way up past the elbow.

I winced. “Wow. That ghost really hated you. How are the others?”

He looked a bit unfocused. “Holly went home with her uh... friend. Who’s a girl -"

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“- George was picked up by his mum. Wait, where’s Lucy?” He looked around me as if I were hiding her somewhere.

“She’s at home. At my house that is.”

“You left her alone? But she’s not s’pposed to be alone Quill. You can’t let her get hurt too. Not like -”

I felt my jaw tighten a little and had to remind myself that he wasn’t entirely of sound mind.

“Mrs Carroway who lives across the street from me is watching the house along with her son.”

Tony made a drunken snort, “So what, y’just left her with some old lady and a –“

“Mrs Carroway is a black belt and her son regularly uses my basement for fencing practice. Don’t forget that Lucy isn’t completely defenceless either. And she has the skull to warn her.”

“That skull's useless,” he snorted, “fat lot of good it did us last night.” He flexed his bad hand with a hiss.

“Well it was human once. It’s not infallible,”

“Can’t believe you’re defending it,” Tony slurred. “It’s a ghost. S'evil. They all are. Wish I’d burned it. But now it’s Lucy’s.”

He frowned “If I took it, she’d kill me,” he whispered conspiratorially. “I really think she would. She can be a bit crazy sometimes like that.”

I laughed loudly.

“But you'll take care of her right?” he continued, “After she kills me.”

“Are you trying to persuade me to avenge your hypothetical murder? Because I won’t kill Lucy. Not even for you.”

“No!” He whined. “Promise you’ll be good to her. When I’m dead.”

“Stop saying things like that, Tony. You’re not going to die anytime soon alright? Too many people care about you to let that happen. You don’t have to make it so hard for us to keep you alive though.”

Tony sunk deeper into the pillow and his eyelids looked heavier and heavier.

He mumbled something I couldn’t understand before falling asleep.

I ripped a corner off one of the papers I didn’t need from my briefcase and wrote a message for Tony, to remind him to call me when he woke up so we could see about getting him home.

On my way home, I went shopping for dinner. As I browsed, I felt more and more self-conscious. It was dinner. Me and Lucy alone, having dinner. It wasn’t a date, but I had to remind myself of that fact several times before I finished, especially when I went past the florist.

Further down the street, I passed a small group of men with questionable hygiene standards. They all sneered at me and I figured that my dad might be right. The suit might be alienating people. I wasn’t prepared for sweatpants in public though.

I probably never would be. I shuddered a bit at the thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a week. We're officially going into lockdown from tomorrow. I hope I'll still be able to write at the same pace, but can't make any promises. I usually write in the evening because my husband is working, but now he doesn't have any work to do, which is great. On the other hand, my workload has skyrocketed because I'm the one working with our finances and booking clients.
> 
> Anyway; what did you think of Quill's parents?
> 
> Also - Chia? I know, I know, Omega 3 and tons of protein, but God; at what cost?
> 
> Please leave a comment. I could really use the distraction and I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions about the story or even just a lame joke to put a smile on my face for a few moments.
> 
> Seriously though.
> 
> Love you guys <3


	33. Reminiscing

_“It’s official. I didn’t really have any doubts, but you’re officially an idiot.”_

I slowly opened my eyes. This was the fifth official declaration of my stupidity, so I didn’t take it too seriously anymore.

“Now what?” I groaned. I didn’t bother lifting my head.

_“He thinks he’s so clever, but I see right through that – that niceness. And all his trying to be nice… thing.”_

“I don’t follow.”

_“No! That’s why you’re stupid!”_

“Then tell me what you bloody mean, so I can go back to sleeping.”

_“Quill! – I mean Kipps! He’s talking to me! But I know it’s just a ploy. Trying to gain my favour because he knows that I’m the key to get to you.”_

“George and Lockwood talk to you too sometimes.”

_“No, no. They talk AT me – usually insulting me. Carrot top is trying to talk WITH me.”_

“Don’t be daft. He can’t hear you.”

 _“No! But he’s trying to_ communicate! _It’s unsettling,”_ the skull whined.

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re a Type Three ghost tied to a skull in a jar and _you’re_ unsettled?”

_“Wait, are you calling me a coward? Yeah! Yeah, you are! You’re calling me a coward! I’m not a coward! It’s just… weird! Let’s run before he gets back from work!”_

“I can’t believe you’re freaking out because Quill wants to talk. And because he’s nice to you. That’s literally the opposite of a problem.”

_“But don’t you see? I’m trying to protect us here! He wants to be nice to be because he knows that you listen to me –“_

I gave the skull another unimpressed look.

“ _\- and then he wants to get between us and when you two get all mushy-mushy, then boom! I’m out in the cold.”_

I frowned a bit. “Skull, are you jealous?”

_“What? No! I just – I’m protecting you!”_

“You _so are!_ ” I grinned widely, “You’re jealous!”

_“Am not!”_

With an air of finality, the glowing plasm was sucked into the skull which stayed still and quiet.

I shook my head at it and ran a hand over the glass.

“You, silly old ghost,” I chuckled, “Quill might be… _very_ nice. But he’s no Type Three.”

 _“And don’t you forget it,”_ came the hollow response from the depths, but after that, the skull remained silent.

I picked up the note Quill had left on the table.

_Dearest Lucy_

_I would have preferred to stay at home with you, but unfortunately, I had to go to work. Please make yourself at home – I mean that. Do whatever you want. You might notice that I put padlocks on certain rooms in case of unwanted visitors. I set the combination on all the locks to the day you saved me from that Spectre, not far from here. DD/MM/YY_

  * _Quill_



Well hell. I hoped the bathroom wasn’t locked because the only thing I remembered was that it was stupid, and it was winter.

I stretched and moaned and considered burying my face back into the pillow, but in the end, my bladder won the battle against my laziness.

To make myself at home.

What would I even have done if I _was_ home?

To start with I would have had a shower yesterday. I looked at my reflection in the skull’s jar and realised that I had a long black streak down the side of my face. Probably from when Lockwood accidentally tackled me, and my face hit the floor. I was sort of annoyed that Quill hadn’t told me, and my thoughts strayed back to Kate Godwin’s effortless perfection.

I gathered courage and smelled my own armpit but had to recoil from the sour smell of day-old onion. Yup. Quill probably wouldn’t blame me for taking a shower. Blame would be thrown around though if I made him pass out from my stench.

I had borrowed another t-shirt of his. This one was thankfully free of the Fittes logo. I wondered idly how much of his wardrobe he’d had to toss. The shirt reached down far enough so I didn’t bother put my own clothes back on. They smelled and were incredibly dirty from last night’s misadventure.

It was odd, walking around in his house when he wasn’t there. I tip-toed around. Without him, the place seemed so empty that any sort of noise might make an echo. My bare feet barely made a sound on the stairs, but what little sound they did make, felt deafening.

I had planned to take a quick brisk shower, but that wasn’t what I ended up with. Now that I wasn’t standing with one arm in the air and didn’t have cuts stinging all over my skin, I couldn’t help but appreciate how lovely Quill’s bathroom actually was.

The walls of the shower stall were made with frosted glass and the shower had one of those things where you could set the temperature you wanted the water to be rather than spending eons turning taps trying to find the right balance between hot and cold.

The warm water beat down heavily on my back loosening the muscles that were tense from the stress of hunting ghosts, searching for the skull, unravelling mysteries, being threatened by Rotwell, the Winkmans, Penelope/Marissa Fittes and then that loneliness that I barely wanted to acknowledge, even to myself.

I tried to empty my head of all those things. To just let the stress and worry flow down with the water and down the drain.

It didn’t work very well.

Points to me for trying.

Steam slowly filled the room with the scent of Quill’s shampoo and tempted as I was to drown in it, I had to finish my shower eventually, when it felt like my entire body was pruning.

I towelled off but cringed when I caught a whiff of the t-shirt I had planned to put back on. If I did that, the shower would have been for naught. Instead, I tip-toed back out of the bathroom and down the hall a bit to Quill’s bedroom where I knew he kept his clothes. Unfortunately, I was faced with one of the padlocks he had mentioned in his note.

It felt odd that he could remember when I didn’t. But then again, I had always been rubbish at those things. Things like dates and anniversaries seemed silly to me. I couldn’t remember if I had even celebrated my own birthday before. Holly had started picking up on those things though. She made George an entire birthday cake a few weeks ago.

Thinking back though, the thing with the Spectre definitely happened in December.

_I wished I had worn a sweater underneath my jacket; it was so cold I was almost shivering. It was always hot at the furnaces, which made it even worse when going back outside. I had worked a quick case with a small team of Tendy-agents. We had gotten an early start due to the early nightfall and the case was so ridiculously easy that even Bunchurch wouldn’t have managed to foul it up. We were done by five and by five fifteen, the pretty comb the old maid used to do her hair with, was being incinerated. My job for the night was done._

_I briefly considered going to DEPRAC. They sometimes had stray cases that needed to be taken care of and it was good money, but I decided against it._

_Instead, I slowly made my way through the light snow towards the nearest tube station._

_It was odd this time of year, how people were hiding inside most of the time, but at the same time it seemed as if they were compensating for the darkness by drowning it in the streets with decorations of all sorts._

_It was completely irrational, but I actually quite enjoyed it. We never had much at home, and most of the decorations we did have, were homemade. Mum didn’t like them because they would only collect dust, she said. The year before I left home though, our neighbour had bought fairy lights and hung them in a tree in his garden. For some reason, I loved them. They filled me with a small sort of joy, like the crispness of the first flowers of the spring or putting on new bedsheets that had been hung to dry in the fresh air._

_London was full of fairy lights. Even in the parks. I don’t know exactly why they would put them in the parks since no one would be out at night to see them in their full effect, but I supposed they could look nice in the daytime too._

_I took a shortcut through St James’s Church Garden. It was beautiful there. They had hung fairy lights in the trees, and they hadn’t turned them off for the night._

_Everything was made even brighter by the fresh snow that had fallen over the past few hours. It lay completely undisturbed throughout the entire place and it was a fascinating sight._

_The snow crunched under my boots and I was dreadfully cold, but I couldn’t help but walk slowly, taking in the beauty of it. I wasn’t alone in this. Someone else was standing up ahead, admiring one of the trees. I automatically put a hand on my rapier in case I needed to defend myself. One never knew what types of people were strolling around after dark._

_I was surprised to realise that I knew the person and I stopped a bit away, trying to buy myself time to figure out how to go about this. Kipps had been always been nice with me, but he had been an enemy of Lockwood and co._

_Since I first met him, I’d disliked him. I didn’t like his arrogance or his flashiness. I didn’t like the way that he boasted about his accomplishments, which he no doubt did in order to compensate for his complete lack of Talent. While I didn’t like him, I had to have some respect for him. He was overly cautious, bordering on cowardly, but he wasn’t without skill and I could see that he took good care of his people. Especially now that I’d worked with a fair few supervisors, who didn’t seem to care whether they lost a kid or two because there were always more children to be taken advantage of._

_Last time I’d seen Kipps had been an odd meeting. It was a few days after the Aickmere case. We had met by coincidence on a bench in Cavendish Square Gardens. It was on one of my many moody walks in the days that followed the case. I had been sitting there, obsessing over what the Fetch had told me about Lockwood, when he suddenly sat down beside me. As if it was something, we did all the time. We talked about the weather, the latest True Hauntings, DEPRAC-regulations and then he told me about his promotion in an almost modest way. The death of Ned Shaw had truly changed him, just as the Aickmere case had changed me._

_I briefly considered turning around and walk the other way, but in a fit of politeness I called out to him instead._

_“Kipps!”_

_He turned his head, and his face broke into a smile when he saw me. I made my way towards him, but so was something else._

_A Visitor had appeared almost out of nowhere and it was moving faster towards him than I was._

_I broke into a run, conscious that the path was slippery with the snow, and just as the Spectre was about to ram its arm through Kipps’ head, I tackled him all while swinging my rapier in a beautiful semicircle, efficiently dispelling the ghost for now. I briefly admired the way the fairy lights glittered against the metal before I heard Kipps clearing his throat beneath me._

_I looked down at him wide-eyed. His nose was completely pink from the cold and his red hair seemed an even deeper shade of copper against the white of the snow. He was smiling widely, and his eyes twinkled in the soft light._

_“A bit of warning next time, darling and I promise, I’ll catch you.”_

_I rolled my eyes, “Maybe next time, I’ll just let the Spectre take you instead.”_

_“What?” He frowned._

_I got up and gave him a look. “There was a Spectre coming at you. There’s bravery, cowardice and stupidity. How can it be that you only possess the two latter ones?”_

_He huffed a small laugh and stood up next to me. “I’ve been accused of many things, Carlyle, but rarely being stupid. It’s odd. My team and I have cleared this path entirely. Bobby has researched it ad nauseam and there’s nothing left,” he looked around as if he were actually able to See something. “This entire place is packed with iron two feet down. If a Visitor is indeed here, it didn’t come from the ground.”_

_“Are you doubting me?”_

_He shrugged and smirked obnoxiously. “Maybe you just wanted an excuse to be close to me,”_

_I gritted my teeth._

_“What are you even doing out alone after dark? You’re blind as a mole!”_

_The infernal smirk didn’t leave his face. “Were you worried about me?” he teased._

_I didn’t feel like that deserved more response than a raised eyebrow._

_He sighed. “Fine. As I said, my team and I cleared this pathway. We cleared the entire way from the furnaces to Woodbridge Street, where I live. It’s just up here,” he pointed. “I just came from the Furnaces and I felt like enjoying this,” he gestured at the garden around us. “It’s beautiful, wouldn’t you say?” he took a small step closer._

_I took a look around and it was indeed beautiful. From our standpoint, we had a full view of the entire garden. It wasn’t just beautiful, it was breath-taking. The untouched snow glittered in the lights from the many trees._

_I felt a gloved hand underneath my chin, pushing upwards to close my mouth which had apparently opened due to my astonishment._

_I batted the hand away and turned my head back towards him to find him staring at me with a small smile._

_“It is,” I agreed. I wondered why my voice sounded a bit breathy. I did just have a sprint, but nowhere near hard enough to create a strain._

_He took another step closer. “Thank you for saving me then, I suppose.”_

_I scoffed. “You suppose? If it wasn’t for me, your head would be the size of a barrage balloon. And it’s already big enough as it is! Can you even get through doors with that thing?” I ranted._

_He grinned. He was standing awfully close._

_“Alright. Thank you, Lucy Carlyle, for saving my life. Now, can I offer you a cup of tea? It’s the least I can do. That way you can tackle me again on the way if need be.”_

_I rolled my eyes. “Fine, I’ll see you home to make sure you don’t die stupidly. We should get a move on before the Spectre returns. This way you said?” I asked rhetorically and trudged on in the direction he'd pointed._

It was the seventeenth. The date popped into my head as I reminisced.

I held the towel up with one hand while I used the other to try and turn the button-like things to the right combination.

I laughed a bit with pride when the lock popped open.

I quickly found a fresh t-shirt, but issues arose when it came to the bottom part.

I picked up my knickers and the t-shirt from before, went down to gather the rest of my clothes.

It wasn’t much, but I had to wash it. It felt wasteful to start a washing machine for it, so I set about washing it in the kitchen sink. I hung each piece to dry on various radiators. My knickers went on first.

I was in the process of washing my skirt when I heard a key in the door.

Panic bubbled inside me like a pot of potatoes boiling over.

There I was, in Quill’s kitchen, without knickers and I knew that Bobby Vernon had a key to his house.

I heard the door slam open and shut. I quickly grabbed a tea towel to hold in front of me when Quill showed up in the doorway with a shopping bag in each hand. My eyes went wide, and my mouth suddenly felt rather dry. My internal organs made a collective somersault.

I was used to seeing Lockwood in a suit. His were always a bit too small. Quill though; that was something entirely different. Probably because I wasn’t used to seeing him in one.

Quill wasn’t quite as tall as Lockwood and he was a bit thinner, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t fill this suit out. It suited him, so to speak. I had no idea entirely and it was far out of my expertise, but something told me that it was tailor-made.

I reached his face to find him staring at me with an eyebrow raised. Particularly looking at the tea towel I was holding protectively in front of me.

“I’m not wearing any knickers,” I blurted like the idiot the skull claimed I was.

Quill dropped one of the bags and fruit went rolling on the floor. His entire face took a vibrant pink hue. I could only imagine how my own burning cheeks looked.

He turned around and cleared his throat.

“I know I told you to make yourself at home, but are you often walking around in the buff at Portland Row? Is everyone?” he asked with a chuckle.

I gave a small huff.

“Well, George often prefers to uh – cook in the nude. Sometimes.”

“Yeugh! Remind me never to eat there again.”

I shrugged. “It’s fine. He’s getting better. I’ll just –“

Even though he couldn’t see me, I gestured at the living room, where I had left my underwear and went there. Thankfully, it was dry. I’d left it on the hottest radiator there.

“I’m cooking dinner. And I’m keeping my clothes on for it!” He called after me into the living room.

_“Bet he won’t mind you staying naked though.”_

“Shut up.” I growled at the skull.

Slowly, my clothes dried, item by item and by dinnertime, I was finally fully dressed in my own clean clothes. The leggings were still torn, but there was nothing for it. We sat in the kitchen at the small table there. The skull was sulking on the counter.

The food was great.

“I figured Pasta Bolognese would be a safe choice,” he explained. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Pasta Bolognese"

I smiled widely. “You still don’t, I assure you.”

He smirked. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Now, do you always come home from work this early? What are you even doing now? I keep forgetting to ask.”

He snorted a bit. “I work at my parent’s company, but what I’m doing, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Why? Is it a secret?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

He laughed. “I couldn’t tell you because I haven’t a clue. That’s why I came home early. My dad sent me home and I’m supposed to start something new tomorrow.”

“Sounds interesting to do something different.”

“I doubt it,” he smiled ruefully. “I’m supposed to start at the archives, so it’s probably just sorting and dusting or something like that.”

“Sounds like a job for George,” I grinned.

“Nah Cubbins is more into science. At the moment we only have fictions and biographies and things like that.”

“I thought you published for the Lockwood’s.”

He smiled “That was more of a friendly favour.”

“What about -"

CRASH!!

Both of us were up in less than a second at the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass.

There was a sound of yelling from the hall and heavy boots moved through the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We had a small flashback in this one. Hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> I hope you all have a great Christmas, those of you who celebrate it, even if it's probably going to be different this year 🎅🎄🎁  
> Take care of yourselves, each other and the ones you love in this both difficult and joyful time. 
> 
> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of the chapter!
> 
> Merry Christmas ❤


	34. Into the Woods

“Are they from Fittes, do you think?” Lucy whispered.

I tried listen to the intruders. The way they were speaking and even the way they moved. “Too rough and disorganised,” I determined. “My guess is that Leopold Winkman woke up.”

I opened the broom cupboard and found two rapiers. I handed one to Lucy.

“Where’s your rucksack?”

She frowned but took the rapier. “It’s here, but why would Winkman -"

“Later. Put the skull in there and be ready to run.”

She looked like she was about to argue. Probably against running away.

“There are at least six people,” I hissed to her. “If we stay, we’re dead.”

She sneered at the skull before turning to me. “Fine,” she huffed.

I slowly went and opened the hatch on the kitchen window and gestured for Lucy to go out.

“We don’t know if they have someone standing guard. You’ll get almost directly out onto the street. Find a place to hide. Either that or run to the right if they see you.”

She looked over her shoulder and made a weird face at her bag before jumping up on the kitchen counter.

She bit her lower lip before kissing my cheek and then she was out.

I jumped on the counter too.

“Oi!” someone yelled from behind me.

I felt them grab my foot, trying to pull me back in, but I was already halfway out the window. I slashed the rapier out behind me and heard a yelp of pain.

“S’getting away!” Someone cried out.

I heard more people in the kitchen, but I was already out. It was pouring down outside. Lucy had crossed the road and was standing behind a car. We were both in our socks. At whatever home I got next, combat boots were acquired footwear. Either that or I would buy a fortress.

A group of five men came spilling out of the door, as Lucy and I turned the corner.

We ran as fast as we could. I grabbed Lucy’s hand to be sure that she wouldn’t lag behind me, but I needn’t have worried because she quickly overtook me.

“Left,” I gasped as we reached an intersection.

There was a clinking sound, and a knife landed a few feet away from me.

I chanced a quick look over my shoulder and saw three rather large men pursuing us. I tried to remember if there were any places coming up where we could hide, because we couldn’t go on like this for long.

We were both quickly running out of stamina. Running was painful for our socked feet and the rain and the wetness of our clothes did us no favours.

We turned a corner and immediately I pulled Lucy with me into a narrow passage, somewhat hidden by a small tree.

Not many seconds passed before I heard the heavy boots of our pursuers. They were splitting up to search for us.

“We need somewhere to stay,” Lucy whispered.

She was shivering and hugging herself. It was still cold in early April and the rain made it all worse. I wasn’t doing much better in my thin shirt. At least, Lucy wasn’t without undergarments anymore. That would have been another sort of awkward.

I only nodded.

“No, I’m not staying under a bridge,” she growled over her shoulder. “What about Portland Row?”

I frowned a bit. “Depends. If they saw you with me, it’s too obvious.”

“But why would they go after you, if not for me? They would have attacked a long time ago if it was because of the raid.”

I winced. “I’m afraid it’s a bit more personal than that. But I didn’t think old Leopold would wake up any time soon.”

“He was showing signs of waking up the other day. Barnes told me.”

My eyes snapped to hers. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” I hissed. “We should have gone somewhere else! And I left you there alone! Fuck!” I swore.

She shrugged “I’m sorry! I forgot! But why is it personal? You organised the raid on the relic market. Not against the Winkmans personally,”

I looked away. “Because I was also the one who put Leopold Winkman in the hospital,”

“You what?” she snapped.

I sighed deeply and rubbed my face, “I lost my temper.”

“Lost your temper? He’s been in a coma for weeks!” she stared at me wide-eyed.

I bit my lip, thinking about an excuse, but couldn’t find a decent one. I could only try for an explanation of sorts.

“Back at the institute, Tony was fine,” I tried slowly, “But what would you have done to Steve Rotwell if he wasn’t? If you didn’t know if Tony was going to live or die? Would you let Rotwell get away with it?”

“I’d kill him.” She answered without hesitation but clapped her hands in front of her mouth as soon as the sentence had left it. “But that’s different. You don’t –“

“Is it?” I cut her off. “Isn’t it _exactly_ the same though?” I looked her directly in the eye. I honestly didn’t know if I wanted her to understand what I meant or not.

She looked like she was about to argue but thought better of it.

“Is it bad that I don’t feel bad about actually killing Rotwell?” she asked in a small voice instead.

I snorted. “The only reason you killed Rotwell is because I didn’t get there first. Tony might hate me but –“

“He doesn’t.” she interrupted. “He really doesn’t. And you shut up, back there or so help me, I will paint that jar with pretty flowers.” She added over her shoulder.

I chuckled “Let’s just get out of the rain. I think it might be better to rule out Portland Row for now. We’ll go somewhere, get dried up, get some dry clothes and then we can go there after.”

“We should check up on Lockwood too.”

“Agreed. But we’re of no use to him in this state. They won’t even let us into the hospital like this.”

She huffed impatiently.

I rubbed her arms a bit, trying to warm her up. “We could call the hospital though. Ask about his condition,” I suggested.

She unexpectedly wound her arms around my waist and nodded against my shoulder.

I held her close and kissed her hair. “We'll do that first then. As soon as we’re safe. Maybe we can find a payphone on the way to the station.”

“The Tube?”

I only nodded. I inched towards the opening and was relieved when I saw that the coast was clear.

Lucy kept a firm grip on my hand. For that I was grateful because I was running partially blind. If a ghost turned up, I would be dead, no matter if we got away from our enemies or not.

We got out slowly, keeping a close eye on our surroundings.

“There they are!” I heard to our left.

We ran back out the way he had come, past closed shops and restaurants. We passed a single open café, but none of us had time for coffee.

My lungs burned and my skin was so cold it felt like I was being sliced open.

“Angel,” I got out.

“Weird time for compliments, but okay,” Lucy gasped.

I laughed but I was so out of breath that it hurt, “The Station. Angel” I pointed up ahead.

We put the last bit of energy in our sprint and didn’t stop until we were finally on the train.

I threw myself in a seat. The train was one of the older models and the green upholstery was peeling. I almost cried, relieving some of the pressure off my feet.

Lucy looked as exhausted as I felt. We sat across from each other and I was about to pick up her feet when she grabbed my head and pushed it as far down as she could, almost slamming it into the small table between us.

“Get down” She hissed, “The skull says that one of them is on the train with us.”

“Seriously? It can sense that?” I questioned with no small amount of scepticism. I hadn’t forgotten what Tony had told me.

“Just shut up.”

I did as she told me and flattened myself further, going as far as going underneath the table. I couldn’t see anything, but I tried to listen carefully. The train was virtually empty. A couple of night watch kids were arguing further down.

Their squabbling suddenly died down and the sound of heavy boots filled the void. Whoever it was, moved slowly as if they were searching for something.

Shit.

I slowly unfastened my rapier from my belt, careful not to make a sound. Across from my, Lucy did the same. Our eyes connected and she gave me a little smirk.

As soon as the tip of a boot appeared in my field of vision, I surged upwards. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lucy doing the same.

Our opponent was a large man with long, matted hair. His nose looked like it had been broken a fair few times and never been set properly. He was wearing a padded jacket that looked dirty with substances I’d rather not describe.

I hit him in the nose, and I hope I broke it again. He cried out and held a hand to his face.

His other hand lashed out against me with a dagger.

He made some uncoordinated attempts at stabbing me.

Lucy, using one of the poles as leverage kicked him so hard in the shoulder that he fell to the floor.

He scrambled to get up, but Lucy wouldn’t have it. Her rapier was under his chin and he froze.

“Get to the door.” She ordered him menacingly.

He got up with slow deliberate movements. I think he understood that we meant business. As he got to his feet, he held his hands up in a surrendering gesture, but Lucy never let down her guard. I was ready to back her up if need be though.

He inched backwards until he stood exactly in front of the double doors.

The train slowed down before arriving at the next station.

“This is your stop” Lucy sneered at the man.

She pushed him out of the train onto the platform.

Quick as a whip, he reached for something on the inside of his jacket and out of instinct, I pulled Lucy to the floor.

_Thuck_

Thankfully, the doors were already closing back up. The man smiled nastily. The blood running in a steady stream from his nose, stained his teeth red.

I looked behind me. Stuck in the rubber seal that held the doors closed on the other side behind us, was an old throwing knife. If I hadn’t pulled Lucy down, it would have been stuck in her skull instead.

She looked at me with wide eyes before huffing a small laugh in relief.

We returned to our seats and Lucy’s bag.

“Thank you, skull.” I groaned before plopping back down.

Lucy looked at me strangely.

“What?”

She gave me a small smile. “Nothing.”

Rather than sitting across from me, she sat down next to me this time and leaned against me.

I almost dozed off as we sat there quietly, going north.

“Careful!” Lucy yelped when we left the station.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me closer to her. I had my rapier out in seconds, but she appeared to have already disposed of whatever ghost had been there.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Why don’t you have the Orpheus glasses?”

“Well, I can’t have them with me all the time, can I? They look ridiculous and I can’t exactly pass them off as an accessory.” I defended.

“Where are they then?”

“I’ll need to get back for them eventually. I just hope those idiots haven’t burned the house down. I put them in a safe in the basement.”

I tugged on her hand a bit to get her to follow me. “We need to go through the forest. It’s this way.”

She followed easily but kept her hand on her rapier. We had come out at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, but off to the side was a pathway that led towards where we needed to go. It wasn’t far.

“Look, there. Here’s an entrance.” I pointed at the gate in the low fence.

Lucy snorted. “Woods with entrances. Do we need to pay a fee as well?”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t find a response that didn’t sound stupid.

When we passed through the gate, I’d had enough of my socks. In their wet state, they only served to annoy me rather than provide any sort of warmth. I pulled them off and put them in my pocket. Lucy copied me but put hers in her rucksack.

“Oh, quit moaning, you mouldy, old piece of bone. You don’t have any nostrils anymore.”

I felt my mouth curling in a small smile.

It was still cold, but I felt better somehow, with my bare feet on the ground.

“It’s not too far anymore.”

“Where are we even going?” Lucy asked. “You have a treehouse or something in there?”

I cleared my throat. “Not exactly. This way.”

Lucy dug a torch out of her rucksack, but I didn’t need it. I knew every branch and root here.

I took her by the hand, and we walked along the outer paths until we reached a familiar oak tree.

“We’ll need to leave the path now, alright? It’s not far.”

Sticks scratched at the soles of my feet, and leaves stuck to them.

“If I step in dog poo, you’re the one who’s going to clean my feet.” Lucy mumbled from behind me.

“You could also just be careful where you step. Anyway, here we are.”

Finally, we reached the right place. I pointed at it.

“It’s a fence, Quill.”

“It is.”

She crossed her arms in front of her. “It’s a bloody tall fence.”

“Yup. How are you at climbing trees?”

“I uh – decent, I suppose?”

I nodded. “Good enough. That tree,” I pointed at the gnarled old oak next to us, “Has a thick branch that reaches the other side of the fence.”

“You want us to climb a tree? What’s even on the other side?”

“My house. Well, my parent’s house.”

She looked like she was about to slap me. “If this is _your house_ , then why the hell aren’t we just knocking on the front door?”

I ran a hand down my face and blew out my cheeks. “Well, because if my mum saw you, you would first sit through an interrogation and then we’d be married before morning. I didn’t think you’d want that. Also, I promised my mum that I wouldn’t get in trouble.” I said under my breath.

Lucy covered her mouth with her hand, but her shoulders were shaking. Even her eyes were laughing.

I rolled my eyes. “Do you want to go first or shall I?”

“You go,” she grinned. “I want to see mummy’s boy in action,”

I poked her in the ribs, making her jerk and squeal and suddenly, it didn’t feel like we'd been running away from black market dealers. It felt more like sneaking around with the girl I liked, and I prayed to whatever deity might hear me that I wouldn’t embarrass myself and fall flat on my face in front of her.

I tried to push all the confidence I had into the smirk I gave her before taking a hold of the lowest branch. Luckily, I had climbed this tree a thousand times while growing up, so I had muscle memory on my side.

I reached the right branch and looked down at Lucy.

“Are you coming, Ms Carlyle or do you need a written invitation?”

She grinned at me and easily and elegantly jumped from branch to branch.

I heard a sharp intake of breath when she reached the thick branch I was sitting on. From there, she would have full view of the house.

Had been anyone else, possibly in the entire world, I wouldn’t have hesitated to take the opportunity to do some serious showing off, but I knew that Lucy Carlyle was not so easily impressed, so I sat there on the branch, holding my breath, waiting for her to react.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should tell you that I wrote maybe 75% of this on my phone while watching Peppa Pig with my youngest.   
> We watched the one where Grandpa Pig needs to mend the computer in order to beat Granny Pig's highscore in the Happy Mrs Chicken game. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Let me know if there are any porcine elements that snuck their way in.
> 
> I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas and if I don't have time to post before, then Happy New Year too! 
> 
> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of the chapter!


	35. Belonging

“Is that a – is that for swimming?”

Quill cleared his throat. “Yes, it’s a swimming pool.”

I blinked. “But we live in England. When do we even have the weather for that?”

He sighed deeply and rubbed his face. “Always, according to my dad, apparently. He’s going there every morning, like a lunatic.”

I turned my eyes back to the house. It was a great, big villa in red brick. The many windows were trimmed with white. It was larger than 35 Portland Row, and it was in all honesty far more beautiful.

The garden was enormous and well-kept and from what I could tell, there was no peeling paint, no rotten wood on the porch, no broken tiles, or chipped flowerpots to be seen anywhere. Not in the garden and not at the house.

I wondered if this was what Portland Row had looked like back when Lockwood’s parents were alive.

More importantly, I found myself thinking, for the first time since I started my employment with Lockwood and co, that these people were so far removed from the way I’d grown up myself that maybe we didn’t have anything in common at all.

I looked back at Quill and the wet, but still neat shirt he was wearing. He was adjusting into a life I certainly didn’t fit into.

He gave me a smile and for some reason, it was tinted with insecurity and I didn’t understand how or why. He obviously had nothing to be insecure about.

“My parents are living in there and my brother, assuming that he’s in. They all live on the upper floors, but I still have rooms in the basement. There’s the outside entrance,” he pointed at some stairs going downwards at the side of the house. “The entire garden is locked off. This fence is going all the way around.”

“You really do like your privacy,”

Quill snorted. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t, but please remember that this is my _parent’s_ house. I've lived on my own for some years now and I’ve been completely self-sufficient up until now.”

_“Wow, congrats to him for being able to rough it with the riff-raff for a few years. I would slow-clap, but I don’t have any hands.”_

“Shut up,” I hissed at the skull.

Quill raised an eyebrow at me. “Let’s go down. We’ll keep to the right. That way no one can see us from the windows.”

“How often have you snuck in and out of this place?” I wondered out loud.

He grinned at me. “Have you never snuck around before?”

“I uh –“ I swallowed, “No. I haven’t. Let’s just get going. I’m cold.”

He frowned and was about to say something, so I quickly began moving down the branch. I wasn’t going to sit and talk about my childhood home, while staring at his brilliant one.

When I was on the other side of the fence, I let myself hang from the arms and then drop down. The soft grass absorbed most of the impact. Quill dropped down right behind me and together, we crept along the fence on the right side.

Once we got closer to the house, we crossed a small terrasse that led down a flight of tiled stairs. At the bottom was a door with a large oval window in frosted glass. A light turned on automatically above us.

“Can you pick the lock?” Quill whispered.

I shrugged. “You do it.”

“I don’t have any equipment with me.”

“You can borrow mine,” I started rifling through my bag.

“No, they’re yours"

“But it’s _your house_ ” I offered him my set.

He didn’t take it but stood with crossed arms, biting his lip. If I wasn’t much mistaken, his cheeks had taken a pinkish hue in the pale light from the lamp.

“You _do_ know how to pick a lock, don’t you?”

he huffed. “I’ve never needed to, alright,”

_“Right, he probably had people for that.”_

“I started late, and all my teammates already knew how. I just never needed to learn,” he defended.

I wanted to tease him so bad. Picking locks was such a basic skill as an agent that not having learned it was embarrassing times ten. I couldn’t make myself do it though, as he stood there, scowling with his ears turning redder by the second. It was frankly adorable.

“I'll teach you sometime then,” I offered. I took his hand and gave it a little squeeze.

His cheeks turned even more pink than before, but he gave me a small rueful smile.

“Let’s get out of the cold for now. Can you _please_ pick the lock?”

I smirked. “Does George like to moisturise with bacon fat?”

Quill made a face and I got down on my knees and got to work.

“Shit,” I hissed when I dropped the pick for the third time.

I rubbed my hands together. They were completely numb.

Quill kneeled down beside me and took both my hands in his. They were a bit warmer than mine, but not by much. He brought them to his mouth and blew warm air on them.

I looked on; a bit mesmerised.

When he deemed my fingers warm enough, he kissed both my palms.

“Thanks,” I breathed, a bit shakily. The shaking was definitely due to the cold.

After a few heartbeats of staring at him, I returned to my task while listening to the skull’s retching sounds.

Finally, the lock gave in with a reluctant

_Click_

Quill went inside and flicked the lights on immediately.

I flicked them off just as fast.

“What –“

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to turn on the lights? Wouldn’t it be visible from the outside?”

“It’s fine, Lucy. I think it would be more suspicious to see someone roaming about with a flashlight.”

He still went about drawing curtains in front of the windows before turning the lights back on.

I took a look around and was instantly confused.

“Where’s the bed?”

Quill’s eyebrows when high on his forehead. “Well, that’s mighty forward of you.”

“No!” I laughed. “Don’t be an idiot. You said this was your room, so where do you sleep?”

It seemed that this room had everything but a bed. There was a small kitchenette off to the right and next to it the door was open into a bathroom. There was a desk to the left as well as a loveseat, a coffee table, and an armchair. Across from the loveseat was a large television, mounted on the wall.

He walked over one of two doors next to the television and opened it.

Inside was a queen-sized bed with a beautiful wrought iron frame. I assumed the other door led into the rest of the house.

Bloody hell. His _room_ was an entire bloody flat.

“Neat,” I got out.

He winked at me. “This is even better.” He pulled a set of pyjamas out of a drawer and handed them to me along with a fresh pair of socks. “You go have a shower to get warmed up. Then I’ll try and call the hospital to check on Tony. ”

I went back in the sitting room, and almost had a laughing fit when I finally noticed the décor.

“Yeah yeah, you just laugh it up. I didn’t know better, did I? I haven’t lived here since I was about sixteen.”

The walls were light grey, and a large, framed poster hung on one wall, proudly displaying Fittes Agency’s logo, the rearing unicorn.

Quill wrinkled his nose at it. “I feel like it’s looking at me.” He grumbled and, in the end, he took it down and turned it around so the unicorn couldn’t stare at him any longer.

“Shower” he whispered and made a shooing motion towards the bathroom.

I liked the bathroom at Quill’s house. But this? This was something else entirely. This room was all marble, gilded things, and even a tiny crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I had never felt more out of place in my life. Perhaps except from that anniversary party at Fittes.

What had Lockwood said? That I might have been born to this? Highly unlikely – that much was clear to me as I looked at myself in the mirror, pulling leaves and small twigs out of my messy hair.

The way I grew up? I never had my own room, let alone several of them. And sneaking around? I caught myself rubbing my bum subconsciously. My mum would have been furious if I wasn’t home on time. As I got older, that anger turned into indifference. As long as the payment was on time, it didn’t matter if I was anymore.

I would never belong in a place like this. I was too rough, too loud, and too messy. And to me, that was fine. That was just who I was. Did I want to be pretty and elegant and all that? Maybe, sometimes. But my mum’s words rang in my head. I wasn’t here to be pretty. Beauty and grace were for other people.

I quickly took off my clothes and hung them on the radiator. They were absolutely soaked and dirty from climbing the tree. There was a bit of blood on my sleeve but for once it wasn’t my own. I thought about the close call on the train. Quill had saved me again and it didn’t sit well with me. At least he didn’t risk his own life to do so, but I hated _needing_ to be saved.

I got in the shower and slowly warmed up the water. Even at low temperature, my feet were burning

_“Nice neighbourhood, eh? I’ve been around these parts before, you know. Killed a fellow down the street from here. Slit his throat while he was going at it with the maid.”_

I almost slipped.

“How did you even – Never mind, I don’t want to know. And I don’t believe I invited you in here,” I grumbled.

_“You know, you’re probably the only person I’ve known to actually LOSE their attraction to someone after finding out that they were loaded.”_

“I didn’t _lose –“_

_“HA! So, you ARE attracted to him.”_

“I hate you sometimes.” I grumbled.

_“You don’t. You love my witty and insightful comments on your miserable life”_

I sighed heavily. “Just go away, I’m not in the mood.”

I debated washing my hair, but a small sniff of the shampoo confirmed that this was indeed the dwelling of Quill from the past and I easily decided against washing myself in that cloying sweet scent that threatened to give me a migraine.

_“Idea; you could marry Kipps, stage a little accident and then we’ll use his money to start Carlyle and Skull back up. Just brainstorming here.”_

“Do you even have a brain? Is it shrivelled up somewhere in there?” I grimaced at the mental image.

_“Irrelevant. I know about three undetectable poisons.”_

I warmed myself with the water, trying to avoid getting my hair wet. Then I towelled off with the ridiculously fluffy towel and got out.

The pyjamas were a bit too large, but after running around in the rain in nothing but a t-shirt, skirt and leggings, the soft flannel felt heavenly. Hopefully, my soaked clothes would dry fast. I adjusted the thermostat on the radiator to hopefully speed up the process.

Quill looked up with a wide grin when I exited. He was waiting in the armchair with a steaming mug of tea.

I took it gratefully and melted into the loveseat.

He smiled when I moaned after taking a sip of the hot drink. “I've got something else for you.”

He pulled out a pair of boots from behind the chair.

“My mum never really liked these. She won’t miss them,”

“I don’t –“

I didn’t know what to say. They were beautiful. Not in the posh, fashionable sort of way. They were practical, exactly the way I liked them, but the leather was shiny and softer than anything I’d ever felt, and they were handstitched. It was clear that I would never be able to afford a pair like these myself or at least, I probably wouldn’t be willing to pay the price they cost.

“-thank you.” I would have refused them blankly if I’d had a choice, but I couldn’t keep going without shoes. I’d give them back as soon as I could get my own though.

“Try them on. I had no idea about your size, but I don’t think the difference is too big.”

The boots fit perfectly, and they felt amazing. The sole was a bit more flexible than I was used to and they had a bit more heel than the ones I’d left behind at Quill’s house.

“I found some clothes for you as well, and a jacket. I don’t think my mum has ever used either of it.”

“No, I couldn’t possibly. We'll just wait for my clothes to dry.”

Quill shook his head. “No time. I managed to talk to Tony directly and he said that he'll get himself discharged. I figured we could go pick him up. Get you back to Portland Row.”

I found myself smiling. “I’d like that. Your sofa is great and all, but I still prefer my bed.”

“No matter what your bed is like, I bet mine is better.” He sing-songed and winked at me.

_“That’s an invitation if I ever heard one.”_

I swallowed “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back there,”

I didn’t feel like telling him that he was right.

He smiled and shook his head. “I’m not going to. I’m thinking about coming back here to tell my parents that I was robbed. Then I’ll stay here until I find a new place to live.”

I only nodded. It made sense.

“Now, I’m going to take a shower. You should get dressed. The clothes are on the bed.”

With a click of the bathroom door, he was gone. I didn’t move until I heard the sound of the shower.

I went to look at the clothes and wondered if it might not be worth it to put my wet clothes back on.

_“You could also just go naked. Really make a statement.”_

“And what statement would that be?” I raised an eyebrow even though the skull couldn’t see it. Or maybe it could. Who knew.

_“You know ‘come and get me’ – That thing you’re too much of a coward to say.”_

I rolled my eyes and considered the clothes. They weren’t that bad actually. I couldn’t imagine any sort of motherly figure wearing them, but that was beside the point.

The jeans were a bit snug for my liking, but not so tight that I had to flop around like a fish in an attempt to button them, like it had once happened when I tried to borrow Mary’s. That’s where my general dislike of jeans stemmed from. That, and my normal skirt and leggings gave me a lot more flexibility when working.

I looked at myself in the mirror. The white blouse was especially foreign to me. I didn’t remember the last time I’d even worn white. Or anything with frills. This was the sort of thing Holly would look good in.

_“Now you just have to hope he isn’t thinking too much of his mum when he looks at you in it.”_

I made a face.

I picked up the black trench-coat he had put on the bed next to the clothes and something fell on the floor. Something small. It must have come from one of the pockets.

It was a small box. I draped the coat over my arm, put the box on the coffee table and sat down in the armchair, waiting for Quill to finish his shower. The jar with the skull was sticking out of my open bag.

It was a pretty box.

It was shaped almost like a small treasure chest.

It was dark blue and embossed with gold.

Quill sure took his time in the shower.

_“Would you just look in that bloody box? You’re killing me here.” The skull groaned._

“You’re already dead.”

_“Again then.”_

I looked at the bathroom door. The shower was still running.

_“Do it!”_

I grabbed the box with a sigh. It had a tiny clasp, almost like a real treasure chest. It made me smile, but I’m not certain why. I took a small peek inside.

A pair of earrings.

They weren’t like the sort I usually saw. Plenty of the clients we had wore earrings. Usually they were pearls or glitzy, polished gemstones the size of saucers. I had often looked at a client and wondered how their earlobes could sustain that much weight.

I only had small studs in silver to keep the holes from closing up.

But these were beautiful. They were golden studs with small golden chains hanging from them. Each chain had small green stones attached. They were delicate and understated.

“Quill’s mum has good taste,” I commented lowly.

_“I don’t know about that. Look at what she named her son.”_

I snorted and put the box back on the table before getting up. I wanted to try the boots on again, see how they fit with the rest. As I did, the door to the bathroom opened. I hadn’t even heard the shower stop.

Quill stepped out, fully dressed. I hoped he’d done like me and had foregone the floral nightmare. His eyes went wide when he saw me. He gave me a slow once-over and I crossed my arms and cleared my throat.

_“I certainly hope he doesn’t look at his mother like that. Run, Lucy!”_

His eyes reached mine and he broke into a wide smile. “Looks like a perfect fit.”

I huffed and scooped up the box of earrings to give to him.

“This was in between the clothes.”

“I know,” he smiled at me.

I raised an eyebrow, “You know?”

He nodded and opened the box carefully without taking it from my hands.

“I thought you could make them look good –“ he picked one of them up and held it in front of my ear.

“- and I was right,” He beamed.

I frowned. “I don’t – why? Isn’t this basically stealing? The clothes, and the boots I get, but your mothers jewellery? I think that’s where I draw the line.”

_“That’s because you’re boring. A little theft never hurt anyone.”_

I pushed the box towards him, but he wouldn’t take it, even if he stepped closer.

“They aren’t my mum’s.” He smiled at me, “They used to be, but she gave them to me to do with them as I liked, and this is what I’d like to do with them; I’d like to give them to you.”

I scoffed.

“Please?” He requested.

“I – but they’re not really _me,_ are they?” I looked down at the one that remained in the box.

“I beg to differ. I think they might have been made _exactly_ for you.” He took a small step closer.

I frowned and let a finger run down one of the small chains “But they’re so beautiful and I’d probably just lose them or something.”

_“You totally would,”_

“I don’t think you’d lose them. Other than that, I’d say it sounds like they would suit you perfectly.”

I looked up and caught his eye.

When had he gotten so close?

“I –“

“Please,” he whispered, but I didn’t know what he was asking for anymore. I don’t think it was the earrings.

_“How about please don’t”_

His arm went around my waist and I heard the earring fall to the floor behind me.

He was staring at my lips. “Please,” he repeated, and my eyes dropped to his mouth.

I felt his warm hand at the back of my neck, as he pulled me closer.

When his lips touched mine, my eyes fluttered shut and my breathing hitched. Something exploded, somewhere near my diaphragm and I dropped the box.

I couldn’t hear the skull anymore though I doubted he was silent. I could only feel, and it felt as if my entire being was compressed into a small ball of something I couldn’t quite describe, somewhere in my ribcage and it was radiating out towards Quill. My heart was pounding harder than it had probably ever done.

I felt his tongue against my lower lip and I shivered as I slowly opened my mouth to let him in.

One of my hands found its own way into the hair on the back of his head and he made a small gasp when I pulled it a little.

He caught my lower lip between his teeth and I accidentally let out a small moan. My cheeks were burning and even though my eyes were closed, I could feel him smiling against my lips.

I regretfully put my hands on his shoulders and broke the kiss.

“I can’t do this.” I whispered.

“Why?”

I squeezed my eyes together and cursed internally a thousand times. “I promised Lockwood.”

Quill leaned back a little and I opened my eyes to find him frowning. He looked so hurt and it was killing me

“Why didn’t you tell me you were together? I wouldn’t have–“

I shook my head and leaned my forehead against his with a bump. “It’s not like that. We’re not together. It’s because you two are idiots.”

He let out a small unstable chuckle. “That’s nothing new.”

I smiled. “I suppose it isn’t, but most importantly, I’m so confused.” I squeezed my eyes closed. “I don’t know what’s up or down and you two aren’t making it any easier on me, so I’m just not going to be with either of you. Besides, you boys need to find each other again. To mend whatever is between you. And I’m just getting in the way of that.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but I covered it with my hand, causing him to go cross-eyed when he looked at it.

“I couldn’t live with myself if I was the reason, the two of you couldn’t get along.” I looked into his green eyes, willing him to understand.

He took my hand from his mouth. “I’m not ready to give up on this.” He told me seriously.

I swallowed. “Just… You’re the only family he has left.”

He scoffed “We’re not –“

“You are,” I cut him off. “Fix it. That has to be the main priority.”

He gave me a soft kiss on the lips and then a lingering one on the forehead.

He sighed in defeat. “I’ll try. He _is_ family,” another sigh, “Now, will you please wear those damn earrings?” he grumbled.

I snorted. “Fine.”

He knelt down and picked up the earrings and the box and pushed them into my hands.

“They’re raw emeralds,” he told me with a soft smile, “That’s one of the reasons they reminded me of you. I like gemstones cut and polished as much as the next person,”

I snorted, thinking about his collection of jewelled rapiers which were probably all gone by now.

“But look at how beautiful they are,” he continued in a whisper. “That rawness makes them that much more special and enchanting.”

The way he looked at me, made me blush and a swarm of butterflies surged through my stomach again.

I struggled hard with myself not to kiss him again. I viciously beat that desire into submission.

A decision had been made and I wasn’t about to go all weak just because he gave me some incredibly beautiful earrings that he said reminded him of me and happened to be the exact colour of his eyes.

I swallowed hard. “So, are when are we leaving?”

“Now seems like a good time.” He gave me a small smile and squeezed my hand.

We tidied up quickly and I stuffed my still wet clothes into my bag, much to the skull’s displeasure.

It made a snorting sound.

_“It’s official; you really are an idiot.”_

I sneered at it and closed the flap on the bag.

Then we were off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!  
> Certainly a different one than usual.  
> I hope you all made it through the night with your usual limbs still attached and that all our wishes for the next year will come true. Unless you have some messed up wishes like another plague. (I'm looking at you, Satan)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter. George and Holly will soon be making a return. I've missed them.
> 
> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of the chapter <3


	36. Custody

“Lucy -” Tony blurted, wide-eyed as we entered the hospital room. “You look... different.”

Lucy took the not-quite-a-compliment in stride with a raised eyebrow.

“We had to make a small stop on the way. It’s not quite the right weather to walk around barefoot. We didn’t know if Portland Row was secure,” I explained.

Tony nodded seriously. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

He hurried to jump down from the hospital bed and put on his own boots. He put his coat back on and struggled a bit to get the bandage through the sleeve.

I couldn’t stand watching his pathetic flapping of the garment and went to help him.

“How far did it spread this time?” Lucy asked with her arms crossed in front of her.

Tony bit his lip and his cheeks went a little pink.

He looked at the floor and pointed at a place on his upper arm, almost near the shoulder.

She punched him hard on his good shoulder.

He yelped, “Ow! Lucy!”

“ _This_ is why I left,” she growled. “You’re a reckless idiot and someday, you'll get yourself killed. How are the rest of us supposed to just live with that? Have you even _once_ thought of the consequences? What are the rest of us going to do? Where will we even live? Where will we work? No other agency is willing to take us on anymore. You do realise that I could have gotten to those Sources quicker if you hadn’t landed on me, right? A ‘watch out' could have sufficed, but instead, you put us all in further danger by jumping out in front of me. As if I don’t know how to do my bloody job!” she ranted furiously, getting louder with every sentence.

Tony stood completely frozen, holding his shoulder with a look of utter terror on his face.

“I don’t want to leave again, but I swear, if you pull a stunt like that _one more time_ , I’ll move back up north and start a bloody bakery!” she yelled.

Tony blinked. “But you don’t know how to bake,” he commented with a confused nose wrinkle.

I shook my head at his lack of self-preservation skills.

“I'll take George with me,” Lucy snarled, and Tony’s eyes widened further.

“You can’t take George! He was my friend first!” he argued.

“You didn’t seem to care much about that when you threw yourself in front of a ghost!”

“That’s not fair!”

“I’m going to interrupt you two before this devolves into some sort of bizarre custody battle. We should really get going.”

Tony took a deep breath. “Well, I apologise for trying to save you then,” he snarked at Lucy who looked ready to punch him again.

I rolled my eyes and slapped the side of his head. “Be happy you don’t have a supervisor. You'd have been benched a long time ago. Did you contact Holly and Cubbins?” I asked him, trying to steer this train wreck of a conversation into another direction.

I looked at Lucy, begging her silently to just let it go. She didn’t say anything more but resorted to glaring at Tony’s head instead.

Tony huffed. “Yes. They’ll be at Arif’s in two hours,” he grumbled.

“Splendid. Clerkenwell first then?”

Lucy gave a single nod and stomped out of the room.

The plan was to go back to my house and gather the essentials and the most valuable objects so I wouldn’t have to go without backup. I could go back for the basics during the daytime, but the Orpheus glasses especially couldn’t be left behind.

“My espresso machine! Look! Look at what they did to it! Those barbarians!”

My favourite appliance was in pieces. Obviously, someone had been displeased enough with our escape that they felt like punishing the poor Italian apparatus. I nudged the broken water tank with my foot. I’d had it specially imported and everything.

“The blender seems fine,” Tony remarked, probably to make me feel better. It didn’t work.

Lucy came in the kitchen, holding her boots. “They’re full of glass,” she grumbled with a nose wrinkle.

“Don’t try to clean them out,” I warned. “There’ll be tiny shards left and they’ll cut up your feet.”

“I can’t just walk around barefoot. My only other alternative is flip-flops and I don’t quite feel the season yet,” she sulked.

“Just keep the boots you’re already wearing.”

“They’re your mum’s,” she protested.

I snorted. “If it makes you feel better, I can ask if you can keep them and then she’ll say ‘yes, of course she can’, wouldn’t she, Tony?”

He smiled and nodded before looking away. He frowned when he noticed the leftover meal.

Lucy sighed in defeat, but she didn’t look too put out. “Fine. I’ll keep them. At least for now.” She grumbled.

Tony went to the pot of leftover Bolognese and sampled it directly from the wooden spoon.

“You made this?” He asked with his mouth full.

“No, fairies did,” I rolled my eyes.

“S’good,” he remarked. He took another mouthful and I cringed involuntarily.

“It’s also cold. Didn’t they feed you at the hospital or what?”

“Soup is a liquid. Doesn’t count as food.”

I sighed and found some bread. “Please just make a sandwich or something. I can’t stand looking at that. I need you to raid my fridge anyway, you may as well get an early start.”

“Why?” Lucy asked.

“Well, I’ll be staying at my parent’s for now. I’ll probably take a few bits and bobs, but I’ll eat with them. Can’t let all this just rot here. Should be enough to last Cubbins maybe half a day.”

“Lay off George,” Lucy admonished with a small smile.

“Never,” I winked at her. “While you sort that out, I’ll go collect the things I need,”

With that, I went towards the basement door. The thugs had made a considerable effort in trying to break it down, but luckily, they hadn’t managed to get through. I stored a lot of valuables down there so the door was reinforced with steel. I wondered idly if they somehow knew that this was the place to look because the other locked doors didn’t show this sort of damage. Then again, they probably didn’t have time to go further. They weren’t here long after all.

I opened the padlock. The combination made me smile a bit, even if it was a little bittersweet now that Lucy had rejected me definitively.

It had always been a bit fanciful, the idea of us together, but now it was truly dead and buried. She was right. I ought to focus on Tony.

I knew the idiots hadn’t managed to get through the door, but I still breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my key to ghost-hunting inside the safe. I wrapped the goggles up in a scarf before putting them in my old rucksack. I emptied the safe entirely. I had accumulated a lot of things in there, jewellery, legal documents, my passport and especially the deed to the house was important. I planned on putting it up for sale already the next day.

I went back up, taking the stairs taking the steps two at a time to join the others.

“Hello?” A timid voice called out from the hall.

“Kitchen!” I replied.

I heard the crunch of boots on glass as the person hesitantly entered.

“Oh! I uh – I didn’t realise you had company,” Bobby jumped with wide eyes when he noticed Lucy and Tony.

“Hello Bobby,” Lucy greeted politely.

“Vernon,” Tony nodded.

Bobby eyed them both with suspicion.

“What’s happened here?” he asked me lowly, as if the others in the room hadn’t noticed that my home had been ransacked.

“Well, it appears to have been an attempted robbery. A bit of damage, but nothing too bad,” I shrugged. “Was there something you wanted?”

“No,” he smiled. “I was just in the neighbourhood.”

I nodded. “The furnaces I take it?”

“Mm? Yes. Yes, the furnaces. Thought I’d stop by to say hello.”

“Well, hello then. I’d love to catch up, but unfortunately, I have to finish up here. Maybe we could meet for a cuppa next week?”

“Of course,” he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Through the entire conversation, he never once looked away from Lucy. He was always one to hold a grudge.

I shook my head in exasperation and led him out by the shoulder. “Next week, yes?”

“Sure,” he nodded.

I hurried to grab some clothes and toiletries from upstairs and with that, I was finished.

Lucy and Tony had filled their bags with perishables and Lucy was holding a pack of eggs.

And off we were again.

Holly and Cubbins were waiting for us outside Arif’s. The front of the small shop hadn’t changed at all since I could remember. Even though it was a serious night, and we didn’t know if there were enemies close by, I couldn’t help but smile as I thought of all the times, we’d gone down here for ice lollies in the summer. How Jess would force Tony to walk between us or even once when we put him on a leash so he wouldn’t run away.

I sniggered a bit and got some odd looks from the others, but I kept my mouth shut. It wouldn’t do for the little group to imagine their fearless leader jumping around like an overexcited Cocker Spaniel, even if that mental image would have been rather accurate.

I cleared my throat and made sure to look proper serious.

“Right, have you seen any activity at the house?” Tony asked the others.

Holly wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think there are many, but the lights are on.”

“Did you remember to lock away our papers?” he asked worriedly.

Holly had the audacity to roll her eyes. “Yes, because I have a general habit of leaving things untidy.”

I smirked at her and she gave me a small smile in return.

Cubbins shifted a bit. “I’ve counted two so far, but I don’t think they’re here to make trouble. They could easily just torch the place –“

Tony paled.

“But so far, they’ve just been rummaging around. Either they’re looking for something or they’re waiting for us to come home before calling their friends.”

Tony frowned. “What could they be looking for?”

“We took some things from the Institute. Those guns for instance. Maybe that’s what they’re after? Winkmans and Rotwell were rather close connected after all. Maybe the Rotwell people sent Winkman to do their dirty work again?” Lucy suggested.

“Except now, the Rotwell people are the Fittes people” I reminded her.

“The papers!” Tony exclaimed. “George, where did you put the papers? The ones Quill nicked, the schematics,” he asked frantically

“Here,” Cubbins lifted his bag a bit to show us, “I always carry them with me. Never know what might happen.”

Tony gave him an approving nod. “Excellent. Shall we go greet our guests then?” he rubbed his hands together and smiled in a way that would have been sinister on almost any other face.

I was all for sneaking around the back of the house and surprise the burglars, but alas, I had forgotten that Tony Lockwood didn’t do ‘subtle’.

The door was cracked open and rather than sneaking inside and getting them in a surprise attack, he kicked the door, so it hit the wall behind it, making one hell of a racket. I suppose the burglars would have been surprised by the idiocy of that though.

“Gentlemen and/or -women!” he bellowed down the hall. “I would like to ask you to please leave this establishment, as we are closed for the evening!”

I rolled my eyes. And Kate dared accusing me of being dramatic.

“If you leave withing the next sixty seconds, you may do so unharmed, if not, expect to be met by five heavily armed and highly experienced Agents!”

I looked at Lucy and the way she stared at the egg carton in confusion and shook my head.

We all stood still for a moment and then the silence was broken by the sound of breaking glass and boots scurrying across the floor. Miraculously the boots seemed to be running away from us rather than towards us.

With Tony in the front, we slowly moved down the hall and ended up in the kitchen where the glass in the kitchen door was broken. The thugs had clearly chosen to flee in that direction.

“What do you know. It worked!” Tony turned around, beaming.

I scoffed. “Probably more due to luck than wit, wouldn’t you say?”

“Absolutely not. Lockwood and co. has a formidable reputation these days. Those gentlemen only knew what was good for them and scarpered before they could get in trouble.”

I gave him a highly unimpressed look and shook my head.

“I think I need to get going. I need to get back to my parent’s. I’ll just take a night cab there directly.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here? There’s safety in numbers.” Tony pointed out.

I smiled. It was a nice sentiment, but given the tension, we would either end up hugging it out like brothers or killing each other. I didn’t feel like taking the risk.

And what was worse? Lucy lived there too. I had felt her against me. I had tasted her twice.

She didn’t want me and that was fine, but I didn’t think I could keep myself from sitting next to her during meals. Or reaching for her hand. I wouldn’t be able to resist seeking her out at every turn and that wouldn’t be fair. Not when she had told me not to.

No. Having her that close and not being able to touch her wasn’t a test I was ready to go through.

“I appreciate the offer, but I think I’m going to stay with my parents for now. We have excellent security.”

Lucy snorted. “Didn’t we break in there _just_ a few hours ago?”

My cheeks went a bit red. “No one knows about that way in, other than you and me.”

Of course, Jess had known about it too. I thought back to the last time we had climbed that tree together and snuck into my house and suddenly I had a hard time looking at Tony. And Lucy for that matter.

“Regardless, I think I’ll find a flat soon enough,” I assured them. “Thank you all for helping me,”

Lucy put her arms around me in a hug and I automatically held her close. “Thank _you”_ she whispered.

I smiled when we pulled apart and I saw her new earrings glittering in the light from the lamp above the kitchen table.

“You’re welcome,” I murmured.

Tony was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pocket, looking a bit uncomfortable and I gave him a small apologetic shrug.

“Be sure to cover the door so you don’t get water in, you have wooden floors.” I reminded him.

He huffed a small smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “I will. And uh – say hi to your parents for me?”

He posed it as a question and I shook my head in exasperation. “If you want me to, of course I will.”

Out of impulse, I pulled him in for a hug too and was quite surprised not to meet any resistance.

“I’d like that, I think.” He mumbled.

I patted his back and let him go with a crooked smile.

Then I was off to make my mum cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for staying with me and reading this far.
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this chapter.
> 
> What did you think? Write a comment and let me know.
> 
> Please <3


	37. You're Perfect, Just The Way You Are

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning isn't such a nice thing to read. Brace yourself.

Holly followed me up to my room. “You look so beautiful! That blouse suits you so well!” she gushed as soon as the door shut behind us.

I blushed a bit. I might have felt sort of pretty, but the awkwardness was still the primary emotion. I was happy I’d decided to shut off the valve on the skull. I didn’t need his comments when I was feeling so insecure already. It hadn’t stopped yammering on about the kiss since we left Quill’s childhood home. In the end, I simply had enough.

“It’s Quill’s mum’s. Do you think you could help me wash it? I just know that I'll ruin it,” I begged her.

She smirked a bit. “Only if you promise to wear light colours more often.”

I scoffed when I realised, she meant it. “You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly,”

“But I don’t actually have any light clothes.” I was tempted to add a ‘so there.’

“We'll need to go shopping then,” she decided cheerfully.

My cheeks warmed a bit. “Holly, I don’t think I have any money for that.”

Her forehead crinkled elegantly. “I’m sorry, Lucy, I really don’t mean to pry, but I’m the one doing the books, I know what Lockwood pays you. What on earth do you do with it all if you don’t mind me asking?”

I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, surprised by the invasiveness of the question. “I uh -I send most of it back home to my mum. I did have a little bit of money saved up, but I spent that for the deposit when I moved. I obviously lost that after the break-in. The place was wrecked.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “Is your mum struggling financially?”

“I uh – I don’t know. It’s only Mary living at home with her now. But my mum isn’t very happy with me. Jacobs – my old boss put my salary in her account directly and she kept it for rent and food and such. She’s been cross ever since I left. Especially when I lived in Tooting. I couldn’t send her as much because I had to pay rent there.”

Holly’s eyebrows crinkled deeper. “But you don’t live at home anymore, so surely you shouldn’t have to pay rent and food there either.”

“I –“ I couldn’t come up with a good explanation.

I sighed heavily and debated with myself whether or not to let Holly know the sort of mum I had. I couldn’t make myself say it, so instead, I went to my dresser and picked a stack of letters from my drawer.

I bit my lip and hesitated. I almost put the letters back down again, but in the end, I had come to trust Holly. She had seen me at my worst; she might as well see a bit more. I gave them to her and threw myself on my bed while she read.

It didn’t take long. Dealing with all that paperwork had clearly made her a fast reader.

She looked at me with such a deep frown that you might even say that her forehead was wrinkled.

“Lucy,” she breathed. “These are _horrible_ ,”

I shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“How can that be _fine_?” she blurted. “This is from your _mother?_ ”

I nodded. “I don’t – It’s fine, really. She’s under a lot of pressure. She’s working hard.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Has it always been like this?”

I only nodded.

“Has she ever… done any of these things?” she bit her lip.

“She –“ I cut myself off with a swallow and nodded. She’d done it all.

“Lucy,” Holly breathed in horror.

I sat up and took a deep breath. “You have to understand. I was the youngest of seven girls she had to provide for. It really wasn’t fair that she had to work so hard. Especially when she didn’t even want me.”

Holly looked down at the letters again. I knew that said as much in the letter from January and the one from December.

She didn’t say anything but stared at me completely mystified.

“My mum didn’t want me. My dad wanted a son and wouldn’t let her uh – he wouldn’t let her _end_ the pregnancy. He was catholic.” I explained. “My sister, Elisabeth told me he didn’t show up to my baptism though. Some catholic, eh?” I lamely tried to joke.

“That doesn’t excuse this,” she pointed out vehemently, waving the letters around, almost aggressively. “Is this what your childhood was like?”

I shrugged. “Could have been worse. She could have abandoned me. I could have grown up on the streets.”

Holly scoffed. “There’s _always_ a way, things could be worse. That doesn’t mean things are good.”

I blew out my cheeks, thinking of something to say.

“It wasn’t that bad, really. Usually, I just kept to myself. She was fine if you didn’t disturb her.” I waved her off. “Dad died when I was little. I don’t remember much of him. What I do remember was…”

I got a bit lost in the memory. It wasn’t a pleasant one.

“My childhood could have been worse. That’s what I mean.” I finished.

Holly looked at me, _really_ looked at me, as if this was the first time, she saw me.

I looked away. I couldn’t stand the pity. I didn’t need it and I didn’t want it.

“You were always so strong. I have to confess that I’ve always admired you - This is only making me admire you more.”

She gently put a hand on my cheek to turn my face back to look at her. I didn’t find any pity. Just compassion and a small smile.

“I’m not though. I’m too –“

“You’re perfect, just the way you are.” She apparently decided.

I sighed. “I’m really not.”

Holly opened her mouth to say something but hesitated. “Lucy, may I offer you some advice?”

I shrugged. She could offer all the advice she wanted. I didn’t have to follow it.

“Your mum. Stop sending her money. She’s a grown woman.”

I opened my mouth to protest but she cut me off.

“And show these to someone else. This,” she waved the letters around again, “is a burden and you shouldn’t carry it alone. And these threats in here? I know at least four well-trained, heavily armed people she would have to go through to carry any of this out on you.”

“It’s not me I’m afraid for.” I confessed. “Not anymore.”

She nodded in understanding. “Your sister lives with her.”

I nodded.

“You mentioned five other sisters. Surely, they could help her.”

I bit my lip. How could I explain that like my mum and my dad, they didn’t care? That they were exactly the same? That I wasn’t even sure that Mary hadn’t turned out the same too?

“You don’t have to, of course,” Holly rushed out. “But maybe a start could be to write your sister a letter?” she suggested.

“Yeah,” I breathed, “Yeah, I might do that. But can we please talk about something else now?” I requested.

She smirked wickedly, “Sure. We could talk about those absolutely gorgeous earrings you’re wearing.”

I felt my face heat up. “Something other than that?”

“Absolutely not,” she grinned.

I threw myself back on the bed with a groan.

“Quill gave them to me,” I grumbled into the pillow.

If I hadn’t known that I had secured the room with iron filings in between the floorboards, I might have thought we had been invaded by a Screaming Spirit. That’s how loud Holly squealed.

Indeed, heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs and Lockwood showed up, out of breath.

“Is everything alright? I heard screaming.” He frantically looked around for the supposed threat.

“It’s fine. Lockwood, everything is fine.” Holly assured him with a wide smile.

He looked at her strangely. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, Lockwood,” she rolled her eyes good-naturedly “We’re talking about _girl-things_.”

She levelled him with a look and waggled her eyebrows.

Lockwood paled and left down the stairs as fast as he had come up.

Holly snorted. “Teenage boys.”

I grinned at her.

“So, what happened?” she hissed.

I opened my mouth and closed it again. Was this girl-talk? Were we girl-talking?

“I uh – he kissed me.”

Holly grabbed my pillow and screamed into it.

We were totally having a girl-talk.

My cheeks were burning.

“Then what?” she hissed excitedly.

“Then I turned him down.”

Holly’s face fell. “Why?”

I took my pillow back and hugged it. “Because I’m so confused. I don’t how to feel or how to act. I mean, Lockwood kissed me too. When we were on the other side.”

Holly’s eyes widened. “And how did _that_ feel?”

“It was – It felt nice. It was good. We were so far out of our depth, but he still made me feel safe. It was really sweet,” I smiled.

“And Quill?”

I bit my lip, thinking about it. “It was… different. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Try,” Holly was practically bouncing in her seat.

I put my hands on my heated cheeks to try to alleviate the burning. I even started sweating and my stomach felt tingly. I thought about the way Quill had kissed me. How his tongue had felt against mine, the tiniest gasp he made when I pulled his hair, how close he had held me, his teeth biting my lip. My stomach did a somersault, and a small shiver went through me.

Then I realised I had been quiet for too long.

I looked over at Holly, who sat with pursed lips and eyebrows high on her forehead.

“I – it’s probably just because it only happened a few hours ago. I haven’t had time to process it.” I defended.

She gave me a look that told me that she was far from convinced.

I threw my pillow at her, but disappointingly, she caught it in the air.

“I just don’t want anything until I’m absolutely certain.” I asserted.

She smiled warmly. “That sounds like a great plan. There’s no rush.”

“It’s about the two of them as well. They’re weird.”

Holly laughed. “That’s true.”

“No, not the regular weird.” I grabbed my pillow back and hugged it. “Did you know they used to know each other before?”

She tilted her head. “Not just as agents?”

I shook my head. “I uh – I don’t actually know if I should tell you or not, but they actually used to be family friends. Thick as thieves apparently, until Lockwood’s parents died. Quill’s parents even wanted custody of Lockwood and his sister.”

“Really?” she breathed and leaned forward.

I nodded. “They hadn’t written a will though. I still find that odd. Everyone and their hamster have a will. But then again, they seemed to have been a bit eccentric.” I shrugged.

Holly frowned. “It’s _very_ odd. Especially for a family like this,” she gestured around a bit and I knew what she meant. Wealthy.

I sighed. “Quill told me that they used to try to help out here. He was supposed to have been there that night, when she died, and he wasn’t. Lockwood blamed him for her death. Quill blames himself too.”

“That’s awful,” she whispered, almost to herself. “But then what happened?”

“Quill’s parents still kept trying to get custody of Lockwood, but in the end, he went to live with an uncle. He wrote to them to stop trying. Quill was angry with Lockwood for breaking his mum’s heart. And then they just… fell apart. And then Lockwood humiliated Quill in a fencing tournament,” I rolled my eyes.

Holly made a small smile, “Yes, I’d heard of that.”

I grinned. “Everyone has.”

“But then what? What has Lockwood said?”

“You know how he is about his family. He turns into a bloody clam,” I huffed.

She smirked and leaned back in the chair. “Pot – kettle. You haven’t exactly been the most forthcoming person either.”

“What? just told you a bunch of stuff!” I objected.

“And how much do the others know about this ‘stuff', compared to how long you’ve known them?”

“I uh –“ I swallowed. “They've never asked.”

Holly shook her head. “Well, that’s all the proof anyone needs that they’re emotionally constipated idiots.”

“I think _I’m_ an emotionally constipated idiot.” I grumbled.

Holly smiled gently at me. “You all are. That’s because you never learned how to understand your emotions or how to react to them,”

“Don’t you start psychoanalysing me or something, Holly.” I warned.

“Oh, it’s much too late for that,” she waved me off. “I’ve been doing that since I met you. That’s why I’m so impressed by you. Now I just have an explanation for why you are the way you are,”

I opened my mouth to say something. I didn’t appreciate her trying to figure me out like that, but with the compliment in between I couldn’t make myself complain. I settled for a scowl instead.

“I’m not going to interfere or anything,” Holly smiled, and I didn’t believe her for a second.

The next morning, Lockwood was out to buy new supplies of iron, salt, and donuts. I walked down the stairs and sat down across from George who was eating breakfast and without a word, I slid the small pile of letters across the thinking cloth to him.

He frowned at them before taking his glasses off and rubbing them in his dirty sweatshirt in slow circles. He raised an eyebrow at me when he put them back on but didn’t say anything.

While George was one of the most stone-faced individuals I’d ever seen in a conversation, he could actually be a very expressive reader, so I sat, observing him as he was reading the letters. His eyebrows danced wildly. First, he frowned. Then the brows went high up on his forehead. Then they met again in a frown in the middle before only one of them would jump up and then be met by the other. It was a thing to behold.

When he finished, he put them all in a neat pile and sat, tapping his fingers on the table.

“Wouldn’t it be better if Lockwood –“

“I’d prefer it if he didn’t know. You know him, he’ll only worry and –“

“I worry too, you know. I know I’m not the best at,” He waved his pudgy hand about a bit and I understood what he meant, “you know. But I do care. And I do worry.”

He looked at me almost impassively, but that small finger-tap told me that he was in fact quite agitated.

I sighed “I know, George. But you’re not going to –“

He nodded “Lockwood would try to save you.”

“I don’t need to be saved.”

“I know,” he gave me a small smile.

I gave him a warm one in return. “Thank you.”

Then I went about making myself some breakfast and that was that. It wasn’t the instant relief that I had hoped, but I did feel maybe just a bit lighter. I was happy to have George know, and his undramatic reaction and quiet support was exactly what I needed.

When I put the letters back in a drawer, I decided that maybe it really was time for a change and I went down to my desk in the office to write a letter, not just to Mary, but to _all_ my sisters.

Lockwood found me as I wrote the address on the last one.

“Up for practice?” he asked with a gigantic smile.

I looked at my poor hand, that was already cramping up from all the writing I had been doing. Then I looked at his, which was still heavily bandaged from his idiotic attempt at a rescue the other night.

“Are you?”

“Nah. I just wanted to spend time with you,” he winked.

I huffed a small laugh. “You could just ask, you know.”

“Also, I bought you a little something.”

I tilted my head in question.

“It’s in here,” he gestured at the rapier room.

I followed him in there and raised an eyebrow at him when I saw it.

It was a large slice of wood. A cross section where you could see all the rings.

“What’s this supposed to be?”

“Those throwing knives of yours,” he shrugged and put his hands in his pocket. “What sort of employer would I be if I didn’t provide proper training equipment? I uh – I asked Quill what would be best, actually.”

He took a deep breath and blew out his cheeks.

I smiled widely at him. I was truly touched by his consideration. The fact that he had consulted Quill warmed my heart even more. The more they talked, the better. “Thank you, Lockwood. It really means a lot. I've been meaning to practice more. I really think they could be useful in the field.”

He nodded. “Just be sure to wear some proper shoes when you do,” he winced.

I snorted. “I take it Quill told you what happened to his foot?”

“Oh no, I was there when it happened. He wanted to show off, but it didn’t go quite as he had hoped, I imagine. It’s hard to look cool when there’s a knife going through your shoe. I was rather more terrified than impressed.”

I laughed. “Not sure if it’s better or worse than having your bum stabbed by a sword in public,”

Lockwood joined me in my laughing fit. When the laughter died down, he looked at me strangely.

“Go get those knives then and let’s see what we can do,” he grinned.

I took the stairs two steps at a time. When I returned, Lockwood had taken down Lady Esmeralda and Floating Joe and put them on the floor in the back.

We ended up spending the entire afternoon taking turns at throwing knives at the piece of wood. By the end of the day, we both managed to get a knife to stay stuck in the wood, but in the learning process we’d also managed to kill a bag of salt, and sack of potatoes. The floor also had several new scratches and Lockwood somehow managed to get a knife stuck to the ceiling. Miraculously no one was injured.

Early evening, I went down to the nearest post box.

I held my breath as I put all six letters in it, one by one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got some feels, writing this chapter. 
> 
> Please leave a comment for me and tell me your thoughts!


	38. Defenestration

“So, how is it, living with your parents again?” Tony asked politely.

I snorted a bit. It had been a few weeks and I was absolutely done. “My dad has taken up yoga.” I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Healthy” Holly commented with an impressed smile.

“In the nude.” I added with a scowl.

She started coughing and Tony patted her on the back. He looked a bit green.

“I’m going to look at a flat at four. So, are we going to pay our respects to old Marissa Fittes or what?” I asked.

“No!” Lucy hissed. She shot me a sheepish look and pointed at the skull in the jar whose mouth was moving rapidly. “Shut it… I know you don’t respect her, that’s not what this –“

“Right, moving on,” Tony continued, “We’ll need to prepare. George has been researching –“

Cubbins ceremoniously put down a stack of papers on the table.

“ – and found out that there’s supposedly a trapdoor at the Mausoleum.”

“God, I’m going to regret this,” I muttered under my breath. “The Mausoleum is under constant, armed guard.”

“Armed with what?” Holly inquired.

“Pistols. So, they don’t need to be close in order to kill us.” I pointed out.

“Can you find out more about the guard? Possibly through our _secret agent_ ” Tony winked at me.

I rolled my eyes at his drama. “I’ll ask, but I make no promises.”

“Alright, but anything you can find out would be great. Second issue is the key to said trapdoor.”

With a flourish, Cubbins pulled out a photo of someone I unfortunately knew.

“Michaels,” I sneered.

“You know him?” Holly smiled.

“Unfortunately. He’s a piece of shit and saying that is a compliment. He’s a good friend of Gale’s.”

“He’s the one with the keys,” Cubbins informed us. “Do you know where we might find him?”

I rubbed my face, “No, but I can find out,” I moaned.

“No need to sound so grumpy about it,” Tony commented. “It was your idea after all.”

“One I’m regretting more by the second. You do all realise that if we get caught doing this, it’s not going to be prison, right? We won’t make it out alive. You stop looking so cheerful –“ I added when I saw the skull’s sudden wide smile.

“But we’re still doing it, right?” Tony looked around for confirmation and we all nodded, even me like the idiot I am.

“I know you said it, but we want to check… no, _you’re_ dumb –“ Lucy argued with the jar.

She suddenly looked up at me and caught me staring. The skull had outed me, that bastard.

She blushed and gave me a small smile.

“Right, so I’ll find something out about the guard and Michaels and what will you lot be doing then?”

“Plot.” Tony waggled his eyebrows and smiled deviously.

“And we have a case in Brixton at five.” Holly added.

“Yes. And Brixton.” Tony smiled ruefully.

I huffed a small laugh “No rest for the wicked.”

“Is that why you always look so tired?” Cubbins asked.

“That was lame, even from you, Cubbins.”

I got up and stretched. “If that’s all, I think I’ll get going if I’m going to get to my appointment in time.”

“Are you going with someone?” Holly inquired.

“Uh – No. I’m not.”

“You should take Lucy,” she suggested. “She’s not coming with us tonight and it’s always good to have a second set of eyes.”

I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times.

“Besides, maybe she can hear some things you can’t” she pointed out.

Lucy looked wide-eyed at Holly who smirked back at her.

I _had_ wanted to bring Kate because I had wanted to get a second opinion. Especially an Agent’s opinion was valuable, but Kate had to work, and I had been desperate enough to find a flat, to go alone.

“I mean, only if you want,” I prompted Lucy with a shrug.

“I uh – Yeah, sure. I mean yes, I’ll go with you.”

Tony rubbed his neck and sighed heavily. “Just be careful, yeah? Both of you.”

Lucy frowned. “You too, alright? Whoever gets ghost touched next will be facing the business end of my rapier,” she threatened.

Tony smirked “I think I can handle that.”

“Don’t get cocky with me, Lockwood,” she growled.

And I gave Tony a little smirk when I saw him paling.

He flipped me off behind Lucy’s back when she turned to face me, and my smirk turned into a grin.

“I’ll just –“ she gestured at the stairs and left.

Tony pursed his lips. “Where’s the flat then?”

“Mayfair. It’s close to the office. I work at the archives right now, but I expect that to last a few months at most and then I’ll be at the main office.”

He wrinkled his nose. “What do you even do at the archives?”

I snorted, “Get lost. Seriously, the place is massive. I’ve gotten lost twice. We have a copy of everything ever published through us. Which is quite a lot.” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

“How long have you been in the business?” Cubbins cocked his head and looked at me like I was suddenly some sort of interesting insect he had found on his windowsill.

“My mum’s family started the business a bit more than a century and a half ago.” I smirked a bit when his eyebrows travelled just a bit north.

“Is that so?” he leaned forwards a bit.

“Right!” Tony exclaimed, “I remember the anniversary party,”

“Really? You can’t have been more than four or five back then,” I smiled.

He grinned at me. “The reason I remember it is because that was the time when you slipped on the dance floor, took Jess down with you and you both ended up in the emergency room,”

I laughed lightly, thinking back on it. “Jess slapped me because I got blood on her dress.”

“She did. It was amazing,” he grinned.

We both fell quiet, getting a bit lost in the memory. When I looked up, it was to see Cubbins frowning as if he had just discovered that he had become allergic to cake. I figured that he, like Lucy hadn’t known that I had once been a familiar face at Portland Row.

He turned on his heel and went into his room.

Tony grimaced. “Right. I should probably –“

“Make ready for the case? Absolutely,” Holly interrupted him.

That was when Lucy came down the stairs.

“Ready?” I asked. “Leave the rapier. I’ve learned the hard way, that real estate agents don’t like real agents.” I winced.

As we went outside, she brushed her coat to the side and showed me the holster with throwing knives attached to her belt.

“I imagine they don’t like us coming to tell them that the property they’re trying to sell is haunted?” She smirked.

I nodded. “Last week, Kate came with me in uniform. The guy wouldn’t even show us the flat.”

“Might have dodged a bullet there then. Sounds like he had something to be nervous about.”

I smiled “I had actually considered giving Tony the address so that he could drop a business card off there. Seems like an opportunity.”

She nodded “I think he would love that.”

“It’s a lovely coat by the way. Is it new?” It really did look nice on her. It wasn’t the typical Lucy-look. I assumed she was keeping the parka for work now.

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, “Holly took me shopping. I only went because she promised me chips,”

“Did you get the chips then?” I grinned.

She wrinkled her nose. “They were air-fried,” she grumbled.

I laughed, “She’s a devious one, isn’t she?”

“You don’t know half.” She shook her head.

“I’m happy you decided to keep the boots,” I noted.

She blushed and looked down at her feet.

“I asked my mum, by the way,” I added. “Firstly, she didn’t remember even having them. Secondly, she said that if anyone else of Tony’s team is ever in any sort of need or trouble, she’ll help, no questions asked.”

Lucy’s eyebrows went high on her forehead. “She’ll help, just like that?”

“She’ll help alright, but I don’t believe the ‘no questions’-bit for a second.”

She smiled. “She sounds nice,”

“She can be. I know that to others, she can come off as a bit… severe, but she’s fair and compassionate when it matters. My dad, however –“

“Is he strict?”

I snorted. “Quite the opposite. He’d let me get away with murder.”

She smiled a bit ruefully. “My dad would rather have murdered me than let me get away with anything, I think. But he died when I was little.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be,” she looked up at the sky. “I’m not.”

I looked at her and she smiled reassuringly. “I’m really not.”

I couldn’t figure out what to say to that so took her hand a squeezed it instead and her smile widened.

The real estate agent was already waiting when we arrived.

I had met her once before. She was a middle-aged woman with brown, curly hair, and she smiled widely when she saw us. I realised that I was still holding Lucy’s hand, but I couldn’t get myself to be the one to let go so I didn’t. She didn’t seem to mind.

The lady – Mrs Thompson, led us first through a lobby where we were greeted by a porter and then to a lift which we all three crammed into.

“The lift is a new addition. It was installed three years ago.” Mrs Thompson proudly informed us.

“Bit tight though, isn’t it?” Lucy commented casually.

Mrs Thompson’s unnatural smile fell almost imperceptibly, “That’s because they didn’t want to make the flats too small,”

“Imagine going up in this with George,” Lucy told me under her breath, and I huffed a small laugh.

Mrs Thompson looked at us with a bland smile. “Yes, well, we’re going to the third floor.”

I turned around with difficulty and pressed the right button.

The elevator crawled upwards at a snail’s pace, but finally there was a light ‘ding’, and we were let out into a narrow hall. There was a door on each side, obviously for two flats, and then another door next to the elevator which I assumed led to a set of stairs.

Mrs Thompson went ahead with the key. She unlocked the door, went inside, and held the door open for us.

The smell of fresh paint hit me as we entered the flat into a narrow hall.

“If you just continue on, the hall opens up into the living room.”

It was beautiful, I had to admit, with its herringbone wooden floors and large windows. It was the best one yet, but it was also in the pricey end of the scale.

“Absolutely perfect for a young couple” Mrs Thompson smiled.

“We’re not –“

“Entirely certain.” Lucy cut me off. She gave my hand a squeeze and I went with it . “I mean, it’s an old building. Have you had agents in here?” she continued in a deceptively innocent voice.

Mrs Thompson’s smile stiffened a bit. “Of course, we have. They did a full sweep and found absolutely nothing,” she assured us.

Lucy looked clearly unconvinced, but whether she had actually picked up on anything or not, I couldn’t tell.

“Which agency?” I asked, simply out of curiosity.

“That would be Bunchurch.” Mrs Thompson informed us.

Lucy sent me a look. If it was Bunchurch, odds were that something was up. Not necessarily because of malicious intent, but because Bunchurch was _that_ incompetent.

“As you can see, this is the living space – you have lovely natural light from the beautiful large windows – the original panes, upgraded with modern thermoglass. If you follow me this way, we’ll get to the kitchen, which was modernised at the same time as the elevator was installed. The previous owner liked to keep it in a more classical style, but still in light colours.”

Lucy and I both looked around a bit, nodding along to the woman’s sales pitch.

“Back in the living room, if you go down the hall to the left, we have a bathroom on the right side,”

We stuck our heads in there quickly,

“- and further down to the left we have the master bedroom and bathroom. There’s also a walk-in closet.”

We had a look around and I was falling more and more in love with the place.

“Going across the hall, as you can see, the extra room here could be great for a nurs -"

“Office,” we both cut her off. I smiled at Lucy who grinned back at me.

“Of course, of course, in your own time,” she waved us off with a small laugh.

“Armoury,” Lucy whispered in my ear and I almost melted.

“Mrs Thompson,” I asked, “Would you mind terribly if we had a look around on our own?”

“Of course not, you go ahead. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“So, thoughts?” I asked Lucy and bit my lip. I had a hard time containing my excitement.

“There’s something here,” she noted absently and ran a hand across one of the windowsills, “I can’t put my finger on it.”

I snorted. “Figures. I still don’t get why people use Bunchurch.”

“He had a lot of friends who talk him up and people outside the business don’t know better,” she continued in the same half-absent tone.

I rolled my eyes, “It was more of a rhetorical question, but you’re probably right.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you think we could take a slow tour?”

“Please! If you can pick up on something, maybe I can get the place cheaper,” I whispered gleefully.

She grinned at me, “I’ll do my best.”

We spent half an hour going from room to room, where Lucy was touching walls fixtures and doorknobs, trying to get a feel for the place. While she was doing that, I was mentally decorating the place, imagining how my furniture would fit.

When we reached the absolutely gorgeous window seat in the living room, Lucy made a small jump and a yelp.

“What?” I asked.

“Mrs Thompson?” Lucy called instead.

The woman came to join us. “Have you reached a decision, or do you need some more information?”

Lucy snorted. “No, but you ought to get your money back from Bunchurch.”

Mrs Thompson scoffed, “I beg your pardon?”

“Someone was murdered here. Thrown out of that exact window,” she pointed at the window next to us.

“No!” I exclaimed. “You mean to tell me that there’s been an actual legitimate defenestration taking place right here?” I laughed.

Lucy nodded and looked a bit smug.

Mrs Thompson soured. “You’re an agent, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. Now, my bet is that this happened a long, long time ago, Victorian times most likely and there hasn’t been much trouble, but you changed the glass in the windows.”

Mrs Thompson scoffed. “Agents have already cleared this before we changed the windows. They didn’t sense anything. Why would I believe anything you say?”

“Some older types of glass had a very high iron content. When you had that glass removed and replaced with the modern thermoglass, the iron that kept the ghost suppressed was removed and now he’s free to do as he pleases. Lucy said cheerfully.

“And George thinks I don’t listen to his scientific rantings,” she added for my benefit.

I tried to keep my smile in check.

Mrs Thompson’s jaw worked and she scowled at us.

Lucy cleared her throat. “I have a suggestion. If you were to sell the place to us, you could cut the price for having the row of windows in the living room changed. We’ll take care of the agent work ourselves. Your other alternative would be to hire an agency who will charge you for _minimum_ two nights’ work plus handling of the Source, which if I should venture a guess is going to be of the large sort. Furthermore, you would most likely have to change _all_ the windows anyways in order to make them match and fussy clients will notice it when the windows in the living room don’t match the ones in the other rooms,” she pointed out with a smile.

“If you don’t believe me, feel free to stay after dark. Should be fun I think,” she added when Mrs Thompson’s face became sterner and sterner.

“I will need to discuss this with my partners,” Mrs Thompson forced out.

Lucy nodded, “Naturally. Just remember that if you sell it to someone else without disclosing the haunting, you could be charged with negligent homicide,” she reminded her cheerfully.

I stepped just a bit closer as it looked like Mrs Thompson was seriously considering making Lucy the victim of the second defenestration on the address.

“You will hear from me by tomorrow afternoon” She said with a shaking voice.

“Sounds splendid. We’ll let ourselves out,” I gave the woman a cheerful little wave and pulled Lucy with me by the hand.

When we were outside, Lucy seemed to deflate a little. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –“

“Are you kidding me? You were amazing in there,” I laughed.

I picked her up and twirled her around in the air to the annoyance of a man passing by on the sidewalk. I didn’t care.

She blushed and gave me a shy smile.

“I would kiss you if you hadn’t told me not to,” I muttered. I was, in fact, barely able to restrain myself.

She blushed deeper and looked down.

“But please let me buy you dinner. You’ve potentially saved me tons of money,”

She grinned. “Alright. But nothing air-fried.”

“Deal,” I laughed.

The week after, I received the call. I got the flat and the price cut was more than enough to change all the windows. Apparently, the company wanted to avoid public humiliation.

As soon as my stilted conversation with Mrs Thompson ended, I used the phone to call the florist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something on the lighter end of the scale. I always imagined house hunting would be a nightmare in this universe.
> 
> Also, I've always wanted to use the word 'defenestration' in a text. Now I did it twice. It's not an opportunity that comes along too often.
> 
> Please write a comment and let me know what you thought of the chapter or just in general


	39. Inconsequential

_‘_ _Don’t dare to come back. You have no home here anymore.’_

I had expected that. I had also expected that five of my sisters would be angry and disown me or at the very least be indifferent. Sarah hadn’t even replied.

What I hadn’t really expected was the one from Mary. The one that ended in ‘ _it’s all your fault’._

I figured I ought to feel sad. Possibly even angry but all I felt was numb. I was an orphan now. I had that in common with Lockwood then. Except it wasn’t _really_ the same, was it? Because my mum was still alive. She just didn’t want me.

The unfairness of it all struck me like a hammer and I vowed to myself that if I ever lived long enough to have children, I wouldn’t have any unless I was absolutely certain that I could give them something better than what I’d had. That I could love them with everything I was.

I don’t even know why I had that thought. What sort of lunatic would put children into a world like this anyways?

_“DUCK, YOU BIRDBRAINED IDIOT!”_

I automatically reacted as I was told. One tended to do so when a command like that was screeched into your brain by an otherwise indifferent or even malicious skull.

“What?” I looked at the jar in irritation before looking up. “Oh. That.”

A spectral arm hung exactly where my head had been and was dripping ectoplasm on my coat. I pulled the hood up quickly, not to get any on my hair.

_“Yes, that! Where the hell is your head at? If you die, we can hang, that’s cool, but not in a place like here! Where’s your taste?”_

“I thought you’d been found in a sewer,” I raised a brow at the jar.

_“And I had hoped to move up in the world but noooo you’ll just insist on dying here like an idiot and the others will be happy to leave me here. Focus!”_

I looked around at the muck covered walls and found myself thinking why on earth Lockwood had to take this case.

Right. Because cases were drying up and this guy had promised us a contract if we handled this one case well.

 _If we do this, there are at least twenty more to come – that’s as close to a stable income as we’re going to get at the moment_.

That’s what he’d said. Not exactly uplifting stuff, but given the circumstances, that was as close as we were going to get to a positive outlook.

It had become routine to read the newspaper together at Portland Row every day. Last time Lockwood had read it alone, he had stared out of the window for two hours.

We needed each other’s reassurance that everything was going to be okay.

We would read about another company that had been swallowed up by Fittes and then we would joke around about having to take jobs in other fields. I would deliver newspapers. George would start a restaurant even if Lockwood had suggested he could become an exotic dancer in one of the Gentlemen’s Clubs. For some reason we had never really gotten around to determine an alternative career for Lockwood. Each time, he would change the subject and I was often tempted to push it because even if this whole thing with Fittes wasn’t a crisis for us, the clock was ticking for all of us.

_“LUCY!!”_

I ducked again but ended up falling when I realised the spectre was attacking me from the side now. I deflected it with a quick ward, but I scraped my palm in the fall. Typical.

_“What the hell is wrong with you today?”_

“George!” I called out as he was the one closest to my location. I could use some backup.

It was a large facility – it was a disused factory where there had been an accident at some point. One of those things where a corporation makes a ton of cutbacks, often on staff and safety and then when everything goes boom, everyone in management is pointing fingers at each other and no one ends up being punished.

Now it was abandoned. Furniture from the offices had been thrown into the halls where someone had been using it as firewood. The land itself had been bought and the new owners wanted to clean out the ghosts so they could build a new factory and start the same process all over again.

I heard the sploshing of George’s boots coming closer.

“The burnt one or the guy who was sawed in half?”

I blinked a bit, “Excuse me?”

“Well, this would be the site. You have the assembly line just over there, so this must be the place those two happened.”

He looked around almost as if imagining how the accident went down.

“It would all have started here, actually. The one being sawed in half, causing his colleague to panic and get too close to the other guy who was welding. Then, he spread the fire through the entire place, causing two more deaths,” he continued.

His eyes moved further down the warehouse. I shivered a bit. I never liked the details too much.

“So, which one was it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged.

“But I showed you pictures!” George whined.

 _“Bet you weren’t paying attention then either. What’s gotten into you? Is it because you’re in loooove?”_ the skull mocked.

“No, shut up,” I snapped.

George looked at me with an eyebrow raised, just a bit.

“Not you. Continue,”

George sighed. “Alright, one of them is tall and uh portly, the other one is the opposite.”

He fished two photocopied pictures out of his rucksack to show me.

I frowned at them.

“Why does it even matter which one it was? A ghost is a ghost, isn’t it?”

“It’s the Source, Lucy,” George huffed impatiently, as if he had explained me this a hundred times, which in his defence, he probably had. “If it’s the bloke that was sawed in half, we might need to look for the blade of the saw or even a piece of it, whereas if it’s the burn victim, we’re probably looking for remains.”

_“Yummy! Barbeque.”_

“Well, whatever we’re looking for, I suggest we do our looking around here. I made an iron circle over there, and the Spirit showed itself here twice,” I suggested.

George dumped his stuff in my circle, and we got on our knees in the grime.

I was moving around with my trusty torch, but George had recently invested in one of those fancy headlamps and could use both hands.

I was moving aside some metal when George gave a shout.

“I have a foot!” he yelled.

He was wedging himself in between the assembly line and the floor and there near the back wall was something that indeed looked like a shoe with part of the tibia still attached.

“Well done, George! Do you have a Seal?”

“Nope, I’ll have to pass it on to you so you can deal with it,” he groaned, stretching to reach the limb.

I went to our bags and found a medium sized silver net.

When I looked back up, my blood ran cold. The Spectre had re-formed and was closing in on George who was still stuck under the assembly line.

I could run, but I knew I wouldn’t get there in time. I didn’t even think. As if I had made the move a thousand times; as if I did this on a daily basis and had done so in years, my right hand slipped down to the throwing knives in my belt and threw one in a fluent but forceful move.

CRUNCH!

Against my instinct to squeeze my eyes together, I forced them open.

The knife was stuck in a wooden cabinet on top of the assembly line. The ghost was gone.

I have a loud “WHOOP!” and laughed in relief. The joyous sound was so strange in such a depressing place and it filled the room with an echo that travelled down the entire facility.

“Dammit!” George cursed. He had been startled and hit his head on the assembly line.

“I just saved your life!” I gloated.

“What? From over there?” he squinted at me. He was holding the Source close, like one would hold a baby.

I pointed at the knife that was stuck only half a foot above his head. He recoiled a bit from it.

“What if you’d hit me?” He complained.

“If I did, then it wouldn’t have mattered because you would already have been dead from the Spectre that was ready to give you a hug.”

_“One can only dream,”_

He looked at me incredulously.

“Just get here with the Source,” I prompted, and he begrudgingly did so.

Two pair of boots came splashing.

“Are you alright? We heard yelling,” Lockwood asked as soon as he and Holly were within hearing distance.

_“Of course. Prince Charming to the rescue AFTER the danger has passed.”_

I proudly pointed at the knife that was still stuck in the cabinet right next to Lockwood’s stomach.

He looked at and pulled it out with a brilliant smile.

“Well done Lucy! I just knew those knives would come in handy!”

The skull scoffed.

I laughed. “You _so_ didn’t.”

“Anyway, I think we’re finished here. The burnt one was further down and with the two shades from earlier, I’d say we have all of them.” He clapped his hands together and looked around the scene with a satisfied grin.

I think we all felt a bit lighter. There was always a feeling of relief when another case was closed. I was just happy that we didn’t need to return the next night.

Without the pressure of finding the Source, I also became quite aware of the stickiness of my leggings. I needed a shower. No, not a shower, I needed to half drown myself to the point where even my nose would prune. This time I would remember to shut the valve on the skull too.

We quickly gathered our things. None of us were keen on staying more than necessary and soon we were on our way home.

I didn’t have much of an appetite for breakfast. Holly had gone home. George had gone to bed and I was struggling with the rest of my eggs. I could feel Lockwood looking at me.

“Lucy are you alright?” he asked hesitantly.

I dropped the fork on my plate and jumped a bit at the loud noise.

“I’m fine,” I replied automatically.

“You’ve barely eaten. Usually, you eat twice as much.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that usually you eat a normal amount of food for a normal person and now you’ve barely eaten enough to keep a sparrow going.”

I huffed a bit. “It’s nothing, I –“

“You’ve been distracted these past couple of days too. Bit dangerous as a matter of fact,” he pointed out and tore a piece off the croissant he was holding.

I sighed heavily. “I don’t feel like talking about it,”

He bit his lower lip and stared at me for a while.

“If you tell me some of yours, I’ll tell you some of mine,” he suggested with a small shrug.

I snorted. “What, like a sort of misery bingo?”

“You made it sound almost fun,” he grinned.

He leaned in over the table and supported his head in his hand. He looked exhausted.

“I’ve been disowned.” I told him plainly.

Whatever he had expected me to tell him, this clearly wasn’t it because he was so shocked that he almost knocked his head into the table.

“What do you mean ‘disowned’?” his nose wrinkled.

“As in my mum won’t recognise me as her daughter anymore. Not much of a loss that is, she has six more to spare.” I shrugged, trying for casual.

“So, what does that mean? She doesn’t –“

“She doesn’t want me anymore.” I pursed my lips.

“But – but why?” he asked. He looked so heartbroken that I honestly believed he might be hurt more than me.

I swallowed hard, “Nope. Your turn.”

“I uh – well, I can’t really top yours to be honest. I was just going to say that the deal with the customer fell through because he cheated us. He doesn’t have any more buildings to clear. He just said that to get a discount.”

I chuckled. “All the same. If they had all been like the one we were just at, I could do without. I saw a rat the size of a Labrador down there.”

He gave me a brief but brilliant smile. He took my hand and his expression turned into something soft. Pitying. I hated it.

“But your mother – I don’t understand. How can she not want you?”

It was different to talk with him about this for some reason. With Holly things had just spilled out, but with Lockwood I didn’t like it. I felt almost ashamed. His parents had died, but at least they had wanted him. As far as I knew, no one had ever wanted me.

“You’d have to ask her,” I shrugged.

“But isn’t she proud? You’ve been doing so well – you’re one of the best agents in London,” he looked so confused it was almost comical.

I scoffed. “Pride. The shops don’t accept ‘pride’ as currency, Lockwood,” I told him with maybe a hint of condescension.

“Money?”

I nodded and suddenly became extremely fascinated with the diagram George had drawn on the thinking cloth.

“I cut her off.” I muttered. “Then she wrote me to say that in this case, she had no further use of me.”

When I looked back up, I saw him, still looking completely perplexed. “What about your dad, what does he say?”

I blinked. “My – my dad? Holy hell, Holly is right. We really don’t talk enough,” I noted.

“What do you mean?”

“I really never told you my dad died when I was little?”

Lockwood’s cheeks pinked a little. “I’m sorry. I think you did. I’d forgotten about that.”

I looked at him a bit incredulously.

“A short rundown about me then. The youngest of seven girls, my mum does laundry, my dad was a mean drunk who died when I was small. My mum never wanted me and now she’s gotten rid of me. I’m off to bed.”

“Lucy –“

I rushed up the stairs without looking back. I wasn’t normally this sensitive. Maybe it was the stress, maybe it was because I hadn’t been sleeping well, maybe it was that time of the month.

So, what if he didn’t remember that my dad died? That was inconsequential. It wasn’t like it had happened recently. It wasn’t as if I was missing him. In fact, it wasn’t about my dad at all.

I threw myself on the bed and scowled at the dormant skull in the windowsill.

“You’ve got nothing to add? No punchlines?”

It remained still. Good riddance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that thing when you see someone who looks exactly like a character? I swear, I saw George today. The poor unfortunate guy was just there buying milk, and probably didn't understand the odd look I was giving him.
> 
> Anyway, please leave a comment! Let me know what you think about the chapter and about the story in general. 
> 
> We'll reach La Belle Dame soon.


	40. Peaches and Cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry!  
> I was a bit quick in uploading and must have copied in an old version of the document. Or my phone hadn't synced with my computer and the skull's bits weren't there! Here's the chapter as it should be!

_Quill:_

Kate scowled at me. She leaned back in the chair with her arms crossed.

“No. The answer is no. I'll get the information about the guards but I’m not getting anywhere near Michaels. If I get caught asking about him, there’s no doubt he will somehow gets it in his sick head that I like him or something. There’s no saying what he'll do to me.”

She took a sip of her café latte and delicately dabbed away her milk moustache with her napkin.

“I would never ask that of you. It’s only if you happen to know something or if you overhear something by coincidence.”

She sighed heavily. “Fine. I’ll do it,” she surrendered. That was easier than I’d expected.

“Now tell me more about your new flat,” she demanded.

I showed her the Polaroids I'd taken when I had gotten the keys.

“You should have seen Lucy. She was absolutely brilliant.” I smiled a bit to myself.

“God, your level of infatuation is positively nauseating. I’m going to vomit on your plate,”

“Doesn’t matter. She told me she doesn’t want anything to do with me like that. Seriously though. She was amazing.”

Kate's only reaction was a slight raise of an eyebrow.

I showed her the original ad for the flat and the contract so she could see the price difference and told her about how it went down with Mrs Thompson.

“She always was a worthy opponent.” Kate nodded at the end. “If you tell her I said that I’ll tell her about that dog that was in love with you and wanted you to have his puppies.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Her facial expression didn’t change at all and I sighed in defeat.

“How are things at Fittes?” I asked her.

She frowned a bit. “I’ve heard some rumours, but I have no idea if it’s true or not.”

I leaned forward a bit, “Yes?”

“There’s talk about the formation of a sort of night patrol. To _support_ the night watch and _organise_ them better.”

“So, they’re taking control of the night watch and getting a great big lot of informants in their pocket.” I concluded.

She nodded. “They’re also starting to train the older agents to _assist_ the police now. They’re expected to join the police as soon as they’re done at the agency.”

My eyebrows flew high, “Really?”

“I haven’t been picked for any of it. I think they’re keeping me a bit at arm’s length. They can’t fire me because I’m a brilliant agent –“

“And incredibly modest.”

“Shut up. I’m perfect and they can’t fire me, but on the other hand they also can’t trust me because we’re friends.” She bit her lip.

“So, what – you don’t want to be friends anymore?” I quirked an eyebrow at her.

“No, you moron. I’m just afraid that things will get complicated for me soon. Dangerous.”

She started ripping small pieces off my napkin. “I'm worried that they’ll ask me to spy on you. Gale came to see me yesterday. He apparently heard about your _terrible break-in_ and wanted to send you a care package, if I could please give him your new address.”

I paled a bit. “What did you tell him?”

She shrugged. “I told him that you don’t tell me things anymore and that I didn’t know.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re planning something.” I leaned in over the table.

She smirked and leaned closer as well. “I’m planning on breaking up with you. Everyone and their great grandmother think we’re together anyway. If we just stop seeing each other in public, no one will believe we’re not still talking in private. But an ugly, messy break-up? That’s going to give me freedom to tell Gale no to spying on you and it’s going to put me above suspicion if it’s bad enough.”

I frowned. “Are you sure about this? You’re putting yourself in deeper.”

“I’m already in deep, Quill,” she sighed. “two days ago, I saw Beatrice – she took over after you as medic. She was treating the new recruits that Gale had been training.” She shook her head and looked down at the table. “How can I in good conscience be a part of that? We’ve been letting it happen right under our noses and just enjoying the benefits. It’s time to stop and fight it. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ll be able to look in the mirror anymore and this make-up takes _work_ ,” she joked with a small smile.

“Alright. we’ll cook something up.” I gave her hand a small squeeze before picking up my coffee and taking a sip.

She leaned back in her chair again. “I was thinking something about infidelity,”

I winced. “Really?”

She scoffed. “There have been heavy rumours about you and Carlyle. Especially since Jeffrey saw the two of you strolling around, holding hands on a romantic afternoon walk some days ago. He was exceptionally happy to be the one to inform me of that.” She raised an eyebrow at me.

I cleared my throat. “That wasn’t – we’re friends,” I objected.

She made a small snort. “How often do you hold hands with Lockwood? Or Bobby? Or even me?”

Any further objections died in my throat. I rubbed my face. “Alright, I don’t. But there really isn’t anything going on other than my own self torture,” I sighed. “I'll need to talk to her about it. I know she doesn’t exactly hang out with the Fittes crowd, but if she meets some of them at the furnaces or somewhere else, they might get nasty.”

Kate pursed her lips. “I know it's too much to ask of her.”

“Knowing her, she’ll probably go along with it anyway.” I shrugged.

“I figured as much,”

I frowned at her. “How did you figure that?”

She gave me a weird look and shook her head. “I’ll probably start crying randomly at work sometime around Wednesday and then maybe we could meet at a café for a fight Friday?” she suggested as if we were making a tennis appointment.

“And then we’ll just talk on the phone from then on?” I pouted a little.

“My mum is a hairdresser. Do you have any idea how many wigs I have at home? I can go out in disguise like a proper secret agent,” she waggled her eyebrows a bit.

I rolled my eyes. “Wear something red and we can pretend you’re my cousin.”

She made a face. “I can’t even imagine myself as – as _ginger_ ,” she whispered the last bit in mock horror.

I smirked. “Remind me again – what colour was your hair before you bleached it?”

I felt a small prick on the inside of my knee, and I knew she had a dagger pointed at my leg.

“Not a word, Quill,” she sneered at me.

I gave her a wide grin and winked at her.

Then my face fell when I remembered someone else. “What do you think I should do about Bobby?”

She frowned a bit and sheathed the knife. Then she started ripping up her own napkin. “I don’t know. We don’t get to talk much these days. He’s been put on another team. He’s doing well though, he just got a promotion.”

I blinked. “Wow. He hasn’t mentioned it. Good for him.”

“Yeah. He’s quite proud,” she said carefully.

“He’s gloating, is he?”

She made a small giggle. “He’s terrible,”

I smiled. “Little Bobby Vernon. I always knew he’d go far.”

_Lucy:_

I rarely received flowers. I could count the number of times it had happened with one finger and that was more of a vegetable delivery than anything else.

This was a different calibre. I almost couldn’t see the head of the man outside the door and what I could see was distorted because I could only see his face through the cellophane.

“Lucy Carlyle?”

“That’s me,” I answered automatically.

I had to close the door with my foot after he left because I needed both hands to take care of the flowers. They were all roses. I caught a look at myself in the mirror. There I was; a girl who someone had apparently sent flowers to. On purpose. I don’t know why that was so significant to me. Maybe it was the idea that someone thought of me and had gone out of their way to make this gesture. Maybe it was because I for once felt like a girly girl. Girly girls got flowers and I found that I didn’t entirely mind being a girly girl right at that singular moment.

_“Lucy? Are you inside that bush or behind it?”_

I ignored the skull as I came into the kitchen.

There was a peculiarly thick envelope tucked safely with the roses. I put them down on the kitchen table and fished it out of their plastic cage.

_‘Dearest Lucy_

_Thank you. I wish I had other words deep enough to describe my gratitude but unfortunately I can only come up with those two. Could you please tell Tony I have a job for him? I got a tip about a ghost in a flat. Something about some haunted windows? The client will be paying a handsome fee for this service and will be paying extra to have it done as soon as possible._

_There’s a note from me and the official application in this letter as well along with a cheque for the fee. You might recognise the haunted address._

_Quill_

_PS: Don’t tell Tony who the client is. It’s a surprise and I want him to take money first, otherwise he won’t.’_

I smiled so widely that my cheeks started to hurt and shook my head at the letter.

_“I’ll barf if you don’t wipe that sappy smile off your face. By Satan himself, that’s disgusting.”_

I took out the other papers and felt my mouth go dry when I saw the cheque.

“Lockwood?” I called out with a squeaky voice.

He came into the kitchen and stopped short when he saw the large bouquet on the kitchen table.

He bit his lip and gave me a guarded look.

“That’s from Quill, I take it?”

He shoved his hands in his pocket.

I cleared my throat. “There’s a present for you too,”

I gave him the note, the application for the case and the cheque.

He snapped up the papers and I held my breath as his eyes quickly scanned the application with practiced ease. They fixed and widened when he reached the cheque.

His mouth went slack. “But this – what’s this?”

I made a show out of examining the piece of paper.

“It would appear to be payment.”

He wrinkled his nose at me. “This is forty thousand pounds. This is too fishy! What’s the catch?” He waved the papers around a bit.

 _“That’s a pretty penny. Is in exchange for your services?”_ the skull asked with false innocence and I showed it my middle finger.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Lockwood.”

He scoffed and narrowed his eyes. “But what if it came from Troy?”

“Who’s Troy?”

George snorted as he came up from the basement. “I will force feed you the Iliad at some point. And the Odyssey.”

I huffed, a bit impatiently. “Is there a point?”

Lockwood quirked a smile. “Have you really never heard of the Trojan Horse?” he asked sceptically.

I could feel my jaw clenching and my cheeks warming. “Do I look like I do?”

“Alright,” he chuckled and lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “I just thought the classics were taught at all schools.”

I tapped my foot and looked down at the ring of tea my mug had made. “I didn’t _finish_ school though, did I?” I grumbled.

When I looked back up, George and Lockwood were having a silent argument with violent hand gestures, but they froze when they saw I had noticed them. Lockwood’s face took on that pitying look again. The one with the gentle smile he used on clients who had recently lost a loved one or didn’t have enough money to pay our fee.

God, I hated it. I felt like throwing the rest of my tea in his face.

“I’m sorry, Lucy, I didn’t know.”

George shuffled a bit. He cleaned his glasses three consecutive times. He only did that when he was in distress.

“I don’t get it,” he said eventually. “How? You seem smart enough. Stupidly impulsive at times, but still smart. Knowledgeable.”

I chuckled and if it sounded a bit wet, no one mentioned it. That was the highest praise I had ever heard from George.

“I dunno,” I shrugged a bit helplessly. “I just pick up on things here and there. And I do read, you know.”

Lockwood looked at me strangely.

“I thought you knew,” I told him. “I didn’t put the papers in with my application,”

I put my hands on the table when I caught myself fidgeting with the hem of my shirt.

He bit his lip and looked down at his shoes. “I just figured that maybe you hadn’t put it in because you were ashamed of the results,” he shrugged. “You could be a brilliant agent without any sort of academic skill. I didn’t want to judge you on something that wasn’t actually relevant to what we do here. I didn’t care if you could even read or write. You’re an amazing agent and that’s all I need to know.”

He gave me a crooked smile and I gave him a grateful one in return. I didn’t want to ruin it by pointing out that being an amazing agent wouldn’t always be enough.

I rolled my eyes, “Anyway – You should probably give Quill a call about that job. Probably a good idea to cash the money before you misplace that cheque too.”

He startled and remembered the slip of paper he was holding.

“Right. Yes. Good thinking, Lucy,”

He practically bounced in the direction of the offices.

I chuckled a bit and shook my head. I hoped it wouldn’t backfire when he finally learned who the client was. Things were just starting to thaw between him and Quill, and I wouldn’t want it to go bad again. On the other hand, I knew the company was struggling. We needed the money.

“You could do it now, you know,” George interrupted my thoughts.

“Do what?”

He shrugged and took off his glasses. “You don’t have to take the classes, just take the tests,”

“I don’t know, George.”

“No one has to know. I’ll help you,” he put the glasses back on and he looked at me with determination.

I lifted an eyebrow in scepticism. “You sure?”

“Positive. I’m actually quite curious about how well you'll do,”

Now he looked at me like I was one of his specimens, which in a way, I supposed I was.

“I’m rubbish at languages though. You might want to find someone else for that,” he shrugged and started rummaging around the biscuit tins.

I smiled. “Deal. But don’t tell Lockwood.”

“Yes, because I’m known for my gossiping tendencies,” he had the gall to roll his eyes at me.

I smirked “I don’t know what you run around talking to Flo about.”

His cheeks turned a bit pink. “Shut up. I’ll find out something with the tests and I’ll let you know,”

With that, he went to his room.

I shook my head. It was daunting, the idea of finishing school, even if it was just taking the tests. But it felt good. I was trying to come to terms with my mother’s decision to cut me out of her life and I supposed this was a part of that. I was undoing her decision to take me out of school entirely.

Far most agents started working part time and did school part time too, graduating at about fourteen. Some, like Quill finished school at twelve before starting to work at an agency full time.

Others, like myself were pulled out of school entirely to work full time from the beginning. It was rare as it was also actually illegal. When the Problem started, it was barely a month before all Child Labour Laws had been abolished. In the Seventies however, too many children were illiterate, simply because they had never been to school, but had been sent to work instead. The government reformed the school system and issued a decree that all children had to attend school until they were at least twelve and had to finish with examinations. No home-schooling either. It was a fact that many of the families in the country were complaining about because they had traditions for home-schooling and because they often had many miles to the nearest school.

Personally, I hadn’t gone to school since I was eight. I don’t know how my mum got away with it. At the time I had been happy to skip out on multiplication and division, but now, the glee had turned to disappointment. It wasn’t every day I needed it, but it had been hard when I had been on my own. I had pushed through though, as I usually do, and I had managed. There was pride to be held in that, I told myself. It would be a serious issue once I couldn’t be an agent anymore though.

There weren’t many jobs to be had without any sort of schooling.

I was curious too. Although George was curious to see how good I supposedly was, I was curious to see how bad I would stink. But even if I barely passed the subjects, I would have that rubbish piece of paper like everyone else had.

The skull had been uncharactaristically silent through the exchange.

_“You know, school’s overrated. I never bothered to go myself.”_

I felt myself make a small smile. “Thank you, skull.”

It didn’t respond.

In the afternoon, Holly joined us for tea. The carrot cake she had brought was divine. I knew she was trying to sneak vegetables into our diet, but when it came with such a thick layer of cream cheese frosting, I could care less.

_“One day you’re going to be so fat they have to roll you down the stairs you know.”_

“Shut up,” I told the skull through my mouthful of cake. I would not let it ruin this for me.

Lockwood stood to present the case to us. “I spoke to Quill and we’re going tomorrow night. He told us to bring crowbars, so it’s probably going to be a big Source. We’ll see how it goes and if we can’t take care of the Source, then we can identify it and deal with it the next day.”

I struggled to keep my face straight at his enthusiasm. Instead, I kept my eyes focused on my cake. It really was delicious.

“George has already found information on the address from the archives; what does it say, George?”

“There isn’t much. I had to go back all the way to 1890 when someone threw a bloke out of one of the windows. They never caught the one who did it, but the man was rumoured to be a part of several different criminal activities amongst others what I can only interpret as a prostitution ring. The term ‘unholy’ is used in abundance in the article.”

 _“Sounds like my sort of people!”_ the skull exclaimed with glee.

George took off his glasses and rubbed them in slow circles as he usually did after a well-made presentation.

“Ah; a proper defenestration. Been a while since we had one of those,” Lockwood mused fondly.

I didn’t say anything out of fear of giving myself away.

“So, when are we going?” Holly asked. “Late afternoon?”

Lockwood nodded. “Quill wrote to come hungry. I assume he’s bringing pizza or sandwiches.”

“Sounds good to me.” George smiled widely.

I snorted. “You say that now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” George frowned. “Is he a bad cook?”

“No, worse. He’s a healthy one.”

George cringed.

Lockwood scoffed. “That Bolognese I tasted was _not_ healthy.”

“That’s because he made it for me,” I smirked. “But be prepared to eat some whole-grain avocado-spinach-salmon ensemble.”

“That sounds delicious!” Holly argued.

_“Are we sure we don’t want to kill this bitch anymore?”_

I made a face at her. “I’m just saying that I’m bringing lots of biscuits just in case.”

“Hear, hear!” Lockwood cheered and saluted me with his mug.

I stood and gave a small curtsey. “Now, I’m going downstairs to stab something. Anyone up for sparring?”

George wrinkled his nose and scratched his belly. “Maybe later?”

He always said, ‘maybe later’. He never showed and we all knew it.

“Give me five minutes to clear the table and I’ll be right with you.” Holly offered and set about cleaning stuff up with a brisk pace.

_“There’s your chance! You can make it look like an accident!”_

I went down the spiral stairs. I figured I would start with the throwing knives.

“Are you really still going on about killing Holly?”

_“Please. I know she wants to get rid of me too.”_

I snorted. “She does not.”

_“She so does though. In fact, if I ever go missing again, she ought to be the first suspect!”_

“Holly, would you say these roses are orange or peach?” I heard Lockwood wondering up in the kitchen.

“I don’t know. Could call it a pale orange or a strong peach. Does it matter?” Holly chuckled. Her heels were clicking against the floor as she walked back and forth with plates and mugs.

“Oh, it matters. It matters a lot.” Then he walked out of the kitchen. I heard his footsteps going up the stairs, and the distinct squeak of the door to Jessica’s room as it opened and then shut.

George sighed and he too left to go to his room.

“Idiots, the lot of them,” I heard Holly mumble fondly.

When I threw the first knife it was with a smile on my face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised La Belle Dame, but my brain seems to have taken a detour. It does that sometimes. This entire story is a proof of that.  
> I'm really happy and grateful that so many are reading this story! I honestly hadn't expected it when I started this thing. I hope you're enjoying it because I enjoy writing it.  
> And thank you for commenting on it! I love that, even if you're just saying hi and letting me know that you're keeping up with the story.  
> So please leave more comments! I hoard and cherish them, as you can probably see. 🥰


	41. Loneliness

_Lucy:_

The porter gave me a polite nod when we entered. A look of confusion ghosted over his face and he looked at me when Lockwood asked for directions.

The man pointed us in the direction of the elevator, but I was quick to find the entrance to the stairs.

_“This was always a nice neighbourhood. Not like the other places that used to be dumps but got ‘trendy’ or whatever.”_

“You’ve been around these parts then?” I asked the skull conversationally.

 _“Yeah, I always rubbed elbows with the rich and famous. Even after good old Bickerstaff died. Some of them took pity on me,”_ it reminisced, almost fondly _. “Of course, I did kill quite a few of them too.”_

“Of course, you did,” I rolled my eyes.

“Has the skull been here before?” Lockwood inquired.

_“Actually, the building has a sort of familiar feel. The lobby has obviously undergone some sort of renovation but there is something. I can’t put my finger on it.”_

“You don’t _have_ fingers,”

A ghostly scoff filled my ears. _“You know, that is SO insensitive of you!”_

I shook my head.

When we reached the right floor, Lockwood knocked on the wrong door. I frantically knocked on the right one so Quill hopefully would let us inside before the neighbour opened and saw us there.

Lockwood gave me an odd look.

Quill thankfully opened the door before we were busted, and things got awkward.

I pushed the others into the flat and I swiftly closed the door behind us.

Quill looked around at us. “The hall outside isn’t haunted too, is it? You look like there’s something chasing you.”

I shrugged. “Possibly the neighbour. Lockwood knocked on the wrong door.”

_“You know, I think I have been here before. It seems more and more familiar.”_

“The skull might have been here before.” I informed Quill.

His eyebrows went high on his forehead. “Perfect!”

He took the jar out of my backpack.

“Hey!” I protested, but Quill continued on with the jar under his arm.

I followed him into the living room where I found him holding the skull up towards the middle of the ceiling.

“Could you please tell me, if this is the original stucco?”

He didn’t say anything. Instead, the plasm in the jar blinked twice.

Quill lowered the jar with a sigh. “No, you won’t tell me or no, it isn’t the original?”

The skull made a very rude face.

“Come off it, you wanker. It’s a simple enough question; it the original stucco?”

The jar blinked once.

“Thank you! I tried to tell my mum, but she won’t believe me.”

_“His mum is totally right. I’ve never seen that shit before.”_

Then Quill brought the skull with him into the kitchen and I was left standing, shaking my head and wondering what the hell was happening.

_“Are you going to stand around all day?”_

“Come in the kitchen!” Quill called out and I set in motion.

“Did you just steal my skull?!” I demanded, honestly a bit outraged.

_“YOUR skull? I am my own entity, thank you very much,”_

Quill shrugged apologetically. “I was a bit excited. Sorry. Anyway, come in – dinner’s almost ready.”

The others slowly came into the kitchen. Especially Lockwood looked around suspiciously.

“What sort of client would let you cook in their kitchen?” he asked slowly.

“The very happy and grateful sort,” Quill winked at him.

Lockwood’s jaw clenched. “You’re the client, aren’t you? You lied to me. And you helped him!” he turned to me with an angry scowl on his face.

“Oi. I’m the one who did this. She’s barely even the messenger here.” Quill pointed out.

I don’t know why, but I felt like protesting that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lockwood demanded of me.

“I –“

Quill put himself between us. “Because I told her not to.”

“So, you’re taking orders from _him_ now?” Lockwood demanded.

 _“Lucy,”_ the skull whispered.

I scoffed. “I’m not taking orders from _anyone.”_

_“Pssst, Lucy,”_

“What? Why are you whispering?” I snapped at the skull.

_“Because I’m trying not to call attention to myself,”_

“But none of the others can hear you,”

_“Well, the ‘other’ others still can, and I sort of remember why I remember this place,”_

I groaned. “Why?”

_“Because I may or may not have made the ghost that haunts it.”_

“Perfect. That’s just perfect. Just what my evening needed,” I grumbled.

_“I have a feeling he might not be happy to see me.”_

“What is it?” Lockwood asked, now all business.

“The skull remembers the flat. He also remembers that he was the one to kill our ghost.”

Quill laughed. The joyful sort of sound that comes all the way from the belly.

“Is something funny?” Lockwood asked coldly.

“I just find it absolutely priceless that out of all the people, ghosts and human remains out there, we actually manage to bring the murderer to the crime scene after more than a century,” he chuckled.

“Maybe we could use the skull as bait?” Holly suggested, considering the jar.

_“There – see? I told you she’s trying to get rid of me.”_

“No one is being used for bait,” Quill shot her down.

 _“Thank you,”_ the jar pulsed with a short bright green light.

I still tried to wrap my mind around the… whatever it was the two of them had started.

A timer went off.

“Let’s just eat and we can talk about it all over dinner, yeah?” Quill suggested.

I looked at him and maybe I looked a bit too sceptical.

He raised his hands placatingly “Relax. It’s just salmon with asparagus and new potatoes. I’m just getting to know the oven.”

“It smells lovely,” Holly gushed.

Quill smiled at her. “Just sit and I’ll bring it over.”

He waved us towards the large dining room table. It was slightly cramped, even if it was a big kitchen, but my guess would be that he would move the table in the living room once we cleared the space from the ghost.

Once we were all set and dinner served, Quill stood and cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry Tony. Yes, I bought this flat, it’s mine, but I _am_ also a client and I _do_ need your services, but I have something else to talk to you about as well.”

Lockwood only scowled at him.

He stood for a bit, biting his lip as if he was debating whether or not to go forward with whatever he had to say.

He sighed. “I can trust all of you here, right?” He looked at each of us in turn. His eyes lingered a bit on George who gave an if only slightly reluctant nod.

“As Tony no doubt have told you, Kate Godwin is gathering information for us from inside Fittes.”

He hadn’t.

“Things are getting a bit a bit pinched for her at the moment though.”

Lockwood rolled his eyes. “So, she wants to back out.”

Quill snorted. “No. She wants to go deeper.”

Lockwood’s eyebrows went high on his forehead.

“Don’t look like that, Tony. She wants to bring down Fittes too. She isn’t blind to what’s going on there. None of us are.”

“How come I never knew all the bad things?” George asked in a small voice.

Quill gave him a small rueful smile. “You never exactly reached physical training, Cubbins. Be grateful for that.”

“Cheers,” George raised his glass, and I went along with him.

“Anyway,” Quill continued, holding the back of his chair tightly. “Kate feels like she’s being held back in the company by her friendship with me. I’m not exactly the most popular person at the moment.”

I snorted and he gave me a look which I returned with a smile.

“Now, _she_ has suggested that we stage a little something. Fittes is one giant rumour mill. The amount of gossip passing through the Strand is beyond belief. Kate and I have been a topic basically since she came on my team. Even when she was seeing Ned, people still thought we were together. We’re close friends, but we’ve never been anything other than that.”

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

“What she’s suggesting is to use the rumours to our advantage. Since people already think that Kate and I are together, the easiest way to put her above suspicion is to stage a break-up. A messy one. Then it’ll look like she’s cutting all ties with me and they might start putting more trust in her and let her deeper into the new parts of the organisation.”

“Isn’t that incredibly dangerous for her?” I had to ask.

“What new parts?” Lockwood asked at the same time.

Quill wrinkled his nose. “It would put her in a dangerous position, yes. Regarding the new parts, I’ll elaborate on that later.”

Lockwood huffed. “Then what do you want to do?”

“Kate wants to break up with me. As in pretend that people have been right that we’ve been together all this time,” Quill rubbed his face. “But it has to be ugly and messy, so people won’t believe there’s any chance in hell of reconciliation.” He stared stiffly at his plate.

Lockwood rolled his eyes. “Stop being so dramatic and get on with it already.”

Quill scowled at him and turned towards me. “Conveniently, or inconveniently depending how you look at it, one of the other younger supervisors – one who hates my guts and is obsessed with Kate, saw you and I,” he pointed between himself and me, “walking together and told Kate. At the same time, Gale has been approaching her to get my new address. I’m worried what sort of pressure he might put her under if she doesn’t cut ties with me.”

Lockwood frowned. “I didn’t realise it was so serious.”

“Either way, she’s in deep shit if I don’t help her if only because of Gale. The idea was to make some sort of spectacle where she accuses me of infidelity, and we break up.”

I nodded slowly, getting the idea. “And you plan on using me.”

Quill sighed. “I’m not asking this lightly. You don’t have to do anything, but your reputation would be in tatters. I’m fully expecting you to slap me right now and storm out.”

He looked me directly in the eye as if daring me to actually do it.

 _“Do it, Lucy!”_ the skull whispered. _“Do it for me!”_

I gave Quill a small smirk, “We’re not reputable anyways, are we, Lockwood?”

Lockwood put an arm over my shoulders and gave me a small squeeze. “Indeed, we aren’t, Luce.”

He smiled at Quill who plopped down on his chair in front of him.

“Thank you,” Quill groaned and ran a hand through his hair.

“But keep me posted on what happens when, yeah? I assume some people might take offence on Kate’s behalf?” I winced.

I felt Holly’s hand slide into mine and give it a squeeze.

Quill frowned. “There might be a few people who will be genuinely upset for her but mostly it’s a territorial thing. It’s not that Fittes people in general take care of each other, but they do not take insults lightly, and this would be a slap in the face. Dating agents from rivalling agencies is already controversial enough, isn’t it, Tony?” he smirked at Lockwood whose cheeks went slightly pink.

I scratched my arm. “I just don’t know how we would make it believable. I mean, Kate is… Kate and I’m just me. I mean, if – in theory, you had Kate, what would you want with me?” I shrugged.

Holly scoffed and George frowned.

Quill blinked at me. “I’m sorry, I don’t – I don’t get the question.”

My cheeks warmed. “I hope you’re not going to force me to elaborate on that.”

Lockwood squeezed my shoulder again. “Don’t you worry about that Luce. Now, could you please tell us more about these new things at Fittes?” he asked Quill who looked slightly annoyed but answered anyway.

He told us about Fittes exerting their influence over the night watch kids and the way they were infiltrating the police.

“Sounds like we need to get a move on if we want to do something or Penelope Fittes will have herself crowned in less than a month.” George commented.

“Kate is working on the schedule for the guards and keeping an eye out for Michaels, but I do know another place we might find him.” Quill wrinkled his nose.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?” Lockwood mumbled under his breath.

“The Black Heart”

“Ah,” Holly grimaced.

“You’re familiar with the place?” Quill asked her with an eyebrow raised.

She snorted inelegantly. “You do realise who I was an assistant to, right?” she leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed.

Quill grinned. “I take it Rotwell was a frequent visitor?”

She made a face. “I had to make _personal_ appointments there for him _at least_ one time per week.”

Lockwood grimaced. “Really?”

“That’s nothing. He sometimes insisted that I _accompanied_ him to the dancing shows,” she shuddered.

Quill leaned forward. “So, what you’re saying is that you actually know the layout of the building,” he smirked.

“No. Oh no, whatever you’re thinking, you stop thinking it right now!” Holly protested.

Lockwood turned to look at her over my head. “Whatever could he be thinking, Holly?” he asked with faux innocence.

“Hold up, could someone please explain to the northerner, what the Black Heart actually is?” I interrupted them.

“Gentlemen’s Club,” Lockwood answered at the same time as George said “Whorehouse.”

_“One of the nicer ones too, if I recall. The girls there usually had all their teeth.”_

My cheeks flamed and I hurried to take a drink of my water.

Quill cleared his throat and I saw that his face had gone a bit pink too.

“I’ve never been, but if you know what it’s like in there, do you think you could come up with a way we could steal the key?” he asked Holly.

“Actually, we wouldn’t have to steal it. We could just make a mould of it. That way no one suspects foul play because the key won’t actually be missing.” George offered.

Holly gave an irritated huff “The coat room, maybe.”

“Elaborate,” Lockwood requested next to me with one of his most charming smiles.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “If one of us could sneak into the coat room and do what George said. Take a mould of his keys. They’re likely to be in his coat pocket, aren’t they?”

 _“Do you think they might bring me if I promise to be good?”_ the skull whispered, apparently still trying not to call attention to itself.

“No. Shut up!” I told the skull through clenched teeth.

Quill looked at me like he was holding back a laugh and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“But how will we know which coat is his?” George questioned.

Lockwood’s smile widened. “Well, if one of us were to take the coat from him directly, I think that should be easy. Like someone who knows the building. Someone beautiful who the establishment would probably be eager to hire?” He looked at Holly with a raised eyebrow.

She covered her cheeks with her hands. “I really don’t like where this is going.”

George looked at her impassively. “You mean the way we want you to take on a second job as an exotic dancer or a coat check?”

“You can’t be serious,” I butted in, putting a hand on Holly’s shoulder. “Look at how uncomfortable she is. There has to be another way.”

Quill raised his hands. “Of course, there is. I'm sure we could handle it with a bit of stealth, but your knowledge would really be invaluable, Holly.”

She took a deep breath. “I might know a way in, but I've only ever used it to get out. Sometimes when Rotwell was done looking at the dancers, he would... stay. And I preferred leaving without being seen.”

“Sounds perfect,” Quill smiled.

“But you shouldn’t go alone,” Lockwood determined.

Quill frowned. “I can’t go. That place is full to the brim of Fittes supervisors and upper management…” he trailed off and his face took on a dreamy expression. “Actually, if we wanted to destroy Fittes Agency we might as well just torch the place on a Friday night. Get all the bastards in one fell swoop,” he mused.

_“Marry him, Lucy. If you don’t marry him, I will.”_

“You can’t ma – you’re dead,” I hissed at the skull.

_“Struck a nerve there, did I?”_

“I’ll go,” Lockwood offered. “We’ll figure it out, you and me, Holly.” He sent her a brilliant smile over my head and leaned in front of me to give her arm a squeeze.

“Alright,” she agreed in a small voice.

It was the Lockwood effect. When he looked at you like that, there was nothing you wouldn’t go along with.

_Quill:_

We finished eating and slowly the sky began to darken outside. Lucy kept glancing at the skull in the jar. It was strange to observe how she was around it. How, even though I knew she was listening to it psychically, she would still turn her ear towards it. As the night fell and we all became increasingly more alert, she would put a hand on the jar from time to time. I don’t know which one of them the comforting gesture was supposed to benefit.

We put out a nice big chain circle in the middle of the room, one more near the entrance to the kitchen and one, closer to the window where Lucy had sensed the ghost.

“I see you bought padlocks. Smart!” I noted.

Tony gave me a rueful smile. “I figured it would be a good idea after last time.”

I rubbed my cheek where I had been cut by the Source of the Screaming Spirit from Aldbury Castle. I had been lucky that it hadn’t healed too bad. Almost no scarring. The one above the eyebrow, not so much. It would take me a while not to feel self-conscious about that one.

Lucy and I went to stay in the circle near the window, leaving Holly and Tony in the one in the middle and Cubbins, suitably near the kitchen.

“Could we please agree to avoid the flares tonight? I really like these floors. I’m looking at you Cubbins. For all I know you still have one of those big things stuffed down your trousers somewhere.”

Cubbins grinned at me over his shoulder as he rifled through his bag. “That’s no flare.”

I cringed. “No. It’s just your arse.”

He showed me his middle finger.

“I can hear something,” Lucy called out and we all went silent. “Do you all have Seals in your pockets?”

We did. This was the third time she had asked for confirmation.

The skull in the jar had gone completely dark. We probably couldn’t count on it for help.

“Are we sure it’s a good idea to have the skull here? I mean, it’s probably not going to make our ghost here more agreeable.” I pointed out.

Lucy glanced nervously at the jar.

“What do you say?” she asked. Then her face fell.

“He says it’s already too late.” She looked frantically around the room.

I pulled the Orpheus glasses up from where I had let them hang around my neck and saw ghost-fog slowly seeping in from the hall.

“Here we go,” Tony warned.

I watched as the figure of a tall well-dressed man came into the living room where he stopped near the big circle and turned around with a furious expression.

He had a violent argument with someone unseen, but I knew who the mystery person probably was. The man lunged at the invisible person who had to be a bit shorter than himself, judging by the chokehold he was holding them in.

Then almost out of the blue, the man had been flipped over and laid on his back wide-eyed and fearful. He tried to get back up, but his opponent wouldn’t let him.

Then a rope was slowly being wound around his neck and tickled his nose with the brushy bit at the end before the rope tightened. The man clawed desperately at the rope while looking up, probably at the face of his killer. It took several minutes of the man fighting and jerking around on the floor. Then half-consciously, he staggered on his legs. He supported himself against the wall next to the window before slowly falling out of it.

Holly let go of the breath she had been holding.

“There’s really no doubt now that the skull is evil. Just look at what it did.” Tony sneered.

“That almost looked like self-defence to me.” I argued.

“Would you strangulate someone that long in self-defence?” he asked.

“I might. And that man was walking at the end. He _fell_ out of the window.”

“It – it _tickled_ the man with the rope! An absolute psychopath! Could you do that?”

I smirked “Depends how much I hate the person. I know people I’d dress in a feather boa and cover with glitter before slitting their throats with joy,” I informed him honestly. Lucy made a squeaky sound at my side. Her entire face had gone a deep pink and she stared at the skull with absolute outrage.

Tony scoffed and opened his mouth, no doubt to spew some moralising nonsense that had nothing to do with reality.

Then the ghost was back. It was glitching in the middle of the room, where it had been lying spasmodically on the floor moments before.

It looked thunderous and it was looking straight at Lucy who stood with the jar in her arms.

“No. You can’t have him.” She ground out at it. “Guys start knocking on the panels!” she ordered “The skull says there’s a hollow one, but he doesn’t remember which.”

Then before I had time to grab her, she ran out of the circle.

“Go!” she shouted when none of us were moving. “I’ll keep him distracted!”

I shook my head in exasperation and started tapping the wood panels. The others followed.

Lucy ran around in the living room, hurrying from iron circle to iron circle like some bizarre version of ‘the floor is lava’.

The ghost was constantly at her heels and my heart went higher in my throat with each narrow escape.

We all tapped furiously, and I managed to find a hollow spot just as Lucy tripped over the chain in the middle of the room. The jar with the skull rolled across the floor, but the ghost didn’t have interest in it anymore.

“Crowbar!” I yelled and Tony threw me one before dispelling the ghost with his rapier. Just as soon as it was gone, it re-materialised however, catching Tony off guard so he had to jump to avoid it. The ghost was still gaining on Lucy who was lying prone on the floor, ghost locked. It went unhurried now that it had her helpless. It was leering at her and I realised that it was enjoying it. The skull might be a bit of a psychopath, but it clearly wasn’t the only one.

I swiftly broke open the panel and found an old piece of rope lying at the bottom, near the floor. I ripped the silver net, that was far too big, out of my pocket.

I wished that I could have tightened the rope around the ghost’s neck myself, but I had to settle for the next best thing and smothered its Source in silver. My ears popped and the spirit hovering over Lucy disappeared.

“Still have pity for that thing?” I sneered at Tony who had broken out of his stupor.

“I don’t have pity for _any_ ghost,” he spat.

Lucy blinked as she recovered. Then she laughed heartily.

“It wasn’t even the windows,” she giggled a bit hysterically.

I thought about Mrs Thompson’s pinched expression and about exactly how much money I had saved on this flat and then I was in stitches too.

The others looked at us, uncomprehending.

Through my laughing fit, I told them the story and how much exactly Lucy had saved me.

Then, even Tony quirked a smile.

“In that case, I have no guilt whatsoever about taking that money. Hell, this place might as well be Lucy’s too,” he remarked before his cheeks went pink.

I got to my legs and dusted myself off with a head-shake.

“She can have it if she wants to, mate.” I mumbled and slapped an arm on his back.

He gave me a rueful smile and nodded. “It’s not a bad place.”

“Anyone up for a cuppa?” I called out.

There were scattered mumbles of agreement.

We had dispelled the ghost at ten, but the others didn’t leave until two. We sat around with tea, coffee, and biscuits. Tony found a deck of cards and I found out that Cubbins cheats at poker. It was the most fun I’d had in quite a while.

Somehow, I found myself feeling lonelier after they left, and it wasn’t because they had taken the resident ghost with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always got some "cute but psycho"-feels from the skull. Don't know why.
> 
> Please leave a comment! It would make my day!


	42. Dreams and nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got quite longer than I had anticipated. Borrowed a bit from Mr. Stroud too. You'll see what I mean.

_Quill:_

_‘Look at Cubbins,”_ I thought to myself, ‘ _Don’t look at the beautifully well-rounded bottom sticking up to your left. Cubbins. Not that lacy pattern of Lucy’s leggings. Cubbins. Not how wide Lucy’s hips are, compared to her waist. Cubbins. Cubbins, Cubbins, Cubbins,”_ I chanted in my mind, but it didn’t work.

I swallowed, but my mouth was completely dry.

They had been on their knees, studying the stone floor for that trapdoor for _ages_ and even if Kate had assured me that Ericsson and Lancaster who were on duty tonight were both blind and deaf and I knew personally they were dumb as doorknobs, there still was a risk of getting caught, drawn, and quartered.

I was the lookout, but rather than looking out for ghosts or guards, my eyes were somehow drawn to that bit on the back of Lucy’s thighs that had been revealed where her skirt had ridden up when she had gotten on her hands and knees.

I couldn’t help but think about how my hands could easily slide her skirt – _‘No. No, no, no, no, no. Don’t go there,”_ I told my mind. _‘Do. Not. Go. There.’ ‘Pfft. You went there a long time ago. You've been swimming in those waters for months,”_ my treacherous mind replied.

I shook my head. Holly had already slapped the back of my neck twice. I had no doubt she would do something more drastic if she caught me distracted a third time.

Besides, it wasn’t nice of me to stare or think about her like that, especially when I knew that it was unwelcome.

Tony turned around and gave me a sadistic smile as if he knew _precisely_ what I had been thinking about. Which I figured might not be incorrect. I was absolutely certain that he would have been thinking _exactly_ the same if he were in my position.

“See anything, Quill?” he called out cheekily. The white locks in his hair stood out like shining silver in the light of the lantern I was lighting.

I looked at him incredulously. “With you in that position, I’m seeing _plenty,”_

Lucy looked at me over her shoulder and I might have been grasping at straws or hallucinating, but it looked like she sent me a mischievous smile before going back to moving around dust and small pieces of rubble.

I threw out an insult about Cubbins for good measure.

“I meant ghosts,” Tony grinned.

I rolled my eyes even if he couldn’t see it because of the Orpheus glasses. “Sure, you did. Nothing so far other than our tame little friend here,” I replied and tapped the jar. I was still a bit sore that it had lied to me about the stucco. I had done some more research and found out that it was completely wrong for the time period.

Immediately, the jar lit up, blinking furiously. I could see the face behind the glass making impossible and increasingly disgusting faces. Lucy sat up with a wince and put a hand to her head. “Best not call the skull tame, Quill. It doesn’t like it,”

“Oh, I apologise. I didn’t know you were so _sensitive,”_ I told the jar with a grin.

The face obviously upped its rant, and I felt a little pity for Lucy as I saw her wincing again. I put my hands up in a disarming gesture when she scowled at me.

I tried to busy myself by finding the things we needed for opening the tomb. We had spent almost an entire month practicing what we would need to do but this point was especially tricky. We didn’t know much about the entrance so we had needed to practice a dozen different scenarios. I just hoped all the practice wasn’t in vain.

I checked the time. “Guys, we really need to get a move on. There isn’t much time until the guards’ next round.” I pointed out.

Cubbins let out a small growl of frustration. “Well, we’re all looking for the door, except for you! You’re just looking at –“

“I’m the lookout, Cubbins,” I cut him off. “I’m doing my job. What about yours? You’re the one who even insisted on there being a trapdoor in the first place,” I argued.

He scowled at me. “It’s in all the texts. It _should_ be here. There’s supposed to be a door in the floor which they lowered the coffin into. A _silver_ coffin.”

I sighed. “Was it lowered as a part of a ceremony or was it afterwards?”

“What? – Why does that matter?” Cubbins shook his head at me.

“Well, this is a circular room. Aesthetically speaking, if it were part of a ceremony, it would be better to do it exactly in the middle of the floor or the opposite side of the entrance. If not, it could be anywhere, probably to the side where it’s more practical, of course depending on what sort of tools or machinery they used for lowering the lady,”

Cubbins looked like he was about to hit me with his crowbar. _“Aesthetically speaking?!”_

“Yes! It’s only logical. It was probably a big event.” I stood and turned around, taking in the circular room. “Look, all the important people would be standing along the walls, crying politely in their lacy hankies and they would lower the coffin in the middle. Try to look over there and you’ll see.

Cubbins seemed to have taken offence and aggressively lumped over there and got on his knees to prove me wrong.

“There’s nothing here!” he complained.

“Look harder!” I grinned.

Lucy came to help me sort out our things. “I feel as if she’s looking at me.”

She gestured at the large bust of Marissa Fittes which was indeed turned our way.

I chuckled a bit. “Be happy you never actually worked for the company.”

She grimaced.

“Can you believe we’re actually about to do this?” I questioned.

She smiled to herself. “It’s like everything suddenly went very, very fast, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t more than a week ago that Tony and Holly had stumbled through my door at 3 in the morning, tipsy, holding each other up and laughing on the high that usually follows a successful mission or narrowly escaping death. Knowing Tony, it was probably both.

It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that Tony had a severe problem. It wasn’t just that he had a death-wish – he was an adrenaline-junkie which was an incredibly dangerous addiction to have in his profession both to himself and his co-workers.

It had to be handled. We couldn’t wean him off with temptation within reach constantly but maybe we could give him a healthier outlet. Maybe he could be one of those idiots who voluntarily jumped from bridges while tied to an elastic chord or maybe he could start parachuting.

I had let the two have my sofa and the chaise lounge in my new office/armoury. The next morning, he and Holly were all forced politeness and even though they seemed almost as usual, their interactions still had a stilted sort of quality.

I quite wondered what had happened on their little excursion, but I didn’t want to dig into it. Regardless, it had been the last piece of the puzzle to this crazy mission of ours.

“I was more talking about the incredulity that I feel about breaking into a national monument on the hunch of a skull in a jar. No offence,” I added for the sake of the skull.

Lucy looked down at the jar, where the skull was clearly mouthing off.

“Oh, he’s completely fine with it, don’t worry,” she told me with a teasing smile before wincing.

“I can see that” I chuckled. “Don’t about it worry mate, I believe you. But as the Russians say: Trust but verify,” I winked at it.

“Lucy, can’t the skull give us some insight?” Holly asked as she jogged over to us.

I snorted. “It probably can’t,” I goaded it a bit.

Again, poor Lucy winced, and I was starting to get a bad conscience.

“It’s there!” Cubbins called out and came over for supplies.

I spread my arms “See? In the middle,”

Cubbins rolled his eyes. “Sure, next time I need someone to plan a large event in an aesthetically pleasing way, I’ll call you.”

“You want me to arrange your funeral? That could be done for a fee.” I shrugged. “I wonder if we could get away with using ricinius for flowers,” I mused aloud.

“The first book Quill’s parent’s company published was a book on flowers,” Tony butted in with an eyeroll.

“Not just that. It was one of those old etiquette books,” I grinned. “Back in Victorian times you apparently had to be bloody careful. If you farted slightly to the left, it ended up being a marriage proposal. _Everything_ had a hidden meaning.”

Tony snorted. “I just remember Jess gloating that thistles had a double meaning when she hid them in my bed.”

I laughed. “I gave her the original. I knew she would put it to good use.”

He threw a pebble at me and I threw one back at him.

“Boys,” Holly interrupted. “We need to focus here, yeah?”

We both apologised, but it didn’t stop me from pushing him when Holly turned around and we were walking to where Cubbins had found the trapdoor with the ropes.

It didn’t take us long to ready the ropes and I was impressed with the fluidity of our teamwork. We managed to move the giant stone with relative ease and almost silently.

There was something unnerving about staring down at that rectangular black hole though.

“Are we sure we want to do this?” I asked rhetorically and my voice echoed in the hole.

“Of course, we do,” Tony replied. Of course, he did because he bloody thrived on near-death experiences.

“We can’t bottle out now,” Lucy agreed.

“Ah yes. I’m probably just being overly cautious. It’s not like our tip came from an evil, unreliable skull in a jar.”

Lucy sighed.

“It lied about the stucco!” I pointed out, perhaps with a bit of a pout.

Tony rolled his eyes. “It’ll be fine. Right George? Tell us again.”

Cubbins nodded. “All the stories said that Marissa Fittes ordered a special casket of both iron and silver. _If_ she’s even there, which we don’t believe, she ought to be contained by that.”

“And when we open the casket?”

“Then we’ll have all defences in place. The point is that there’s nothing jumping out at us on our way down.” Tony grinned and strapped on his rapier.

He made a show out of stepping over to the edge and taking the first step in as our fearless leader.

I had a hard time containing my disdain.

“Well, unless there are any traps.” Cubbins told us as a matter of fact.

Tony froze. “Traps? What traps?”

Cubbins shrugged. “It just said in a couple of the texts that there might be some traps down there.”

“What sort of traps?” Tony stepped out of the hole again.

“I didn’t say there were, just that there _might_ be,”

“Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?” Tony demanded.

Cubbins shrugged. “Didn’t think it was too important. Just rumours really. Some say that old Fittes didn’t want graverobbers or others to desecrate her tomb,” he gestured at all of us and our equipment, “and that there were some _precautions_ installed. Supernatural ones.”

“And you’re telling us this now?” Lucy complained at the same time as Holly asked “why didn’t you tell us before?”

“I didn’t think too much of it. It was just rumours. It’s my job to differentiate between fact and fiction.”

“No. That’s _my_ job,” Tony fumed. “ _Your_ job is to tell me _everything_ so I can make the judgement and I can decide what to do.”

“Pot – kettle,” I mumbled, causing Tony to turn his scowl at me.

He took a moment to gather his wits, running his hand through his hair a few times.

“It’s fine. It’ll be fine, we’ll just be extra careful. Lucy, can the skull help us in any way?”

Lucy shrugged and looked at her open bag with the skull in it. It was dormant at the moment, so it was hard to tell.

“Never mind,” Tony decided.

“Let’s just keep our eyes and ears peeled. We’ll go down as we discussed. Me first, then George, Holly, Lucy and Quill at the end. We’ve come this far. We’ve worked hard and gone through and… done things to get here,” he looked at Holly. “We can do this. It’s fine. It’ll be good.”

I rolled my eyes.

One by one we went down. I scoffed as I put the Orpheus glasses back on. “It’s a crypt. Since when has anything good ever happened in a crypt?” I muttered to myself.

“I found you in one, didn’t I?” Lucy murmured into my ear and kissed my cheek before stepping into the hole. I had to steady myself first before I could down there. My heart was hammering in my chest and it wasn’t out of fear.

I had once seen a documentary from a war zone where soldiers were walking through a minefield. Every step was carefully calculated, each square inch examined and tested.

Our walk down these stairs was a lot like that, only slower.

Tony was in the front and in a rare display of caution, he was checking every step for traps of any sort.

While I approved of his approach and appreciated it, it was almost as if he was going purposely making a show of going slower than necessary. I didn’t know for whose benefit it was supposed to be.

I only knew that I was ready to burst as I stood on step number seven in almost as many minutes.

I started making faces at the skull in the jar which was sticking out of Lucy’s bag in front of me.

It didn’t take long for it to come to life, casting a green glow around us. I could see a lot more than the candle had given me the ability to.

Only problem was that what little I could see, was disappearing.

I heard the other’s intake of breath when they too saw the complete black nothingness that opened up to our left. Not long after, the right-side wall disappeared too. and we were walking down the narrow steps with no support on either side.

At least the stairs were completely solid, but I still almost felt like I was part of a tightrope act.

Like the dark was daring me to jump into it.

The skull sent me an eerie smile and a wink. That should have cued me in that something was about to happen, and it should have made me warn the others, but I was too slow.

Out of the blue, Lucy made a loud shriek and made a startled jump. I made to catch her but didn’t manage to, so she stumbled into Holly, who took down Cubbins who rammed into Tony who went arse over tit, doing two painful looking rollovers ending up with his legs in the air.

In the end, I was the only one left standing in front of a sore pile of dominoes.

I put a hand over my mouth to stop the laugh that threatened to spill out.

The others were frozen in their awkward positions, listening and looking out for any sort of threat. When nothing happened, Lucy furiously ripped the jar out of her rucksack.

“You endangered all of us!” She snarled at it. “If Lockwood had triggered any traps –“

She was cut off by its response that was silent to the rest of us. “It says we should be grateful that we know that the next twelve steps are safe because Lockwood’s bum tested it for us.”

Holly looked at it fearfully. “It’s gone too far this time. We should take it to the furnaces tomorrow.”

“Oh, don’t be so harsh,” I chuckled. “That was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.”

The others looked up at me with various levels of displeasure as I was standing, safe and unbruised several steps above them.

“Anyway, as much as I will treasure the memory of this moment, I assume you didn’t bring him along for his personality. If you need a break from him I’ll happily take him home with me. I have that film he wants to watch anyway – but no film unless you’re being helpful, understood?” I added to the skull.

The jar gave a single, hesitant and if I were to analyse it, reluctant blink.

“Good. I’m happy we have an understanding.” I looked up at the others.

Tony looked outraged but seemed to grudgingly accept the deal. Holly and Cubbins looked at me with disdain.

Lucy scowled at me as she put the jar back in her rucksack. I took a few steps more down to check on it.

“You’re enabling it,” she complained.

I scoffed. “I’m not. I told it that if it didn’t comply there would be consequences and I intend to follow through.”

“And why would it care about some stupid film?” she wrinkled her nose.

“Where would its motivation be if not to be entertained? Have you considered that maybe it’s acting out because it’s bored?”

“It’s not bored, it just does it because it can,” she argued.

“So, it’s a bit evil, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have things it wants to do.”

“You mean other than killing people?” she asked drily.

I sighed. “Yes, other than killing people. It’s probably lonely.”

“If you two are done bickering over your adopted child, can we please get a move on?” Tony huffed impatiently.

He stared at us with his jaw tensed and I realised how close Lucy and I had ended up during our discussion.

I raised my hands and got back up. Lucy gave the skull instructions on what to look out for and slowly we all got to our feet. Just before we were about to move on though, Lucy flinched and yelled “Stop!”

A tripwire just a couple of inches away from Tony’s shoe.

I had the strange impulse to praise the skull like one would a dog who managed to retrieve a duck.

“Well, at least we owe the skull for that one,” Tony said shakily when he realised what the tripwire might have released.

I felt like I was in one of those films with that archaeologist except there wasn’t any brilliant lost treasure at the end of the stairs. Just a coffin that may or may not be empty.

We quietly made our way down the rest of the steps with no dramatic input from the skull.

The chamber we ended up in was enormous. The others searched the place with their various psychic talents while I let the Orpheus glasses rest around my neck for a bit. I turned on my torch and went to investigate. Other than a couple of old cobwebs, there really wasn’t much to see.

The temperature was steadily chilly which was to be expected for a place underground and I had the idle thought that if it didn’t already have such a macabre purpose, this might have been a perfect wine cellar.

Finally, my torchlight ended up where all the others had theirs. On the monstrous sarcophagus in the middle of the room on which the Fittes logo was dramatically draped. I rolled my eyes. My disillusionment with the company had finally reached a stage where even I found the theatrics ridiculous.

“I suppose this is it then,” Tony stated redundantly.

“This is it,” Cubbins affirmed in a whisper. “That’s the special coffin she supposedly lay in state. Three days with mourners passing by in Westminster Abbey.”

I snorted. That sort of thing was not for mourning, it was for publicity. For all the rich and famous to have their picture taken while crying prettily and lamenting the loss while simultaneously plotting on how else to take advantage of whoever passed.

“Then they brought her here,” Cubbins finished.

“If she _is_ here.” Lucy remarked.

“Which is what we’ve come to find out,” Tony added briskly. He was a tightly wound coil, ready to spring. That extra jaunt in his step and the stiffness of his slightly manic smile gave away that while he was absolutely high on adrenaline, he was also scared out of his wits.

We – people who knew all too well that the dead ought not to be messed with, were about to open the coffin of one of the legends of not only our industry, but our entire nation. A woman who had in all senses of the word been praised as a hero and saviour of all of England.

“It’ll be fine. Won’t take five minutes. Just open and shut and we’re out of here,” he ranted. “Get the chains ready, just as we practiced.”

And practiced, we certainly had. I had spent almost every evening for a month at Portland Row, practicing on the stupid sofa until I had fallen asleep on it and woken the next day to go to work. I almost hadn’t been at my otherwise perfect new flat. Only to shower, shave and change my clothes.

We carefully laid out all the defences and I kept a close eye on the others. Cubbins was sweating even more than usual, which was quite a feat. He started reciting the specs of the coffin as one would with a car. I gathered that it might be a nervous tic of his. Tony was as jumpy as a squirrel on cocaine, but he seemed to try to pass it off as excitement. Holly’s eyes had become wide as saucers and I was getting increasingly worried that she might freeze up if something happened unexpectedly.

Lucy seemed relatively calm, even if the furrow of her brow gave away her worry.

She looked at me and her face relaxed a bit as she made an exasperated sigh. “You’ll chew a hole through your lip if you keep that up,” she remarked.

I released my lower lip from between my teeth where I hadn’t realised it had positioned itself. I wanted to say something cheeky, like offer to bite hers instead, but I was frankly too nervous. This was not a place for flirting. Besides, Tony was scowling at us.

I cleared my throat and stood on attention the best I could in front of who I, in spite of everything, still had trouble seeing as anything other than an eight-year-old little boy.

Tony took a deep breath. “Right. Now it’s my turn.”

He paced a bit in front of the coffin. “Old Marissa started it all. Agencies, the fight against the Problem. Much of the knowledge we have today comes from her. But we know that something else is going on. We have come here to confirm that.”

“Move fast,” Lucy reminded him.

He winked at her. “Always.”

I refrained from pointing out that fast wasn’t always the best way for _everything._

He ripped the silver drape off the coffin with a flourish and opened the clasps. He gave the lid a little push and jumped back behind the chain.

Slowly and soundlessly, it opened. The coffin was lined with deep red velvet. We were all holding our breaths, but the tension wasn’t broken when the coffin had opened fully because against our expectations, the coffin was in fact occupied.

“Well, _somebody_ ’s at home,” Holly remarked in a squeaky voice.

“Fucking hell. No film for you, skull,” I ground out.

“Skull!” Lucy practically roared.

The jar came to life and she had a short argument with the green plasm.

“I suppose we had better check.”

The body in the coffin was covered with a shiny white cloth. Tony went to flick the cloth away and I immediately wished he hadn’t.

At least I wasn’t the only one who jumped back when the face was revealed.

It felt so _wrong_ in so many ways. We all stood, staring at it for a bit, mesmerised by the pure _wrongness_ of it. In this line of business, we had all seen a lot of corpses in various stages of decay. It had been decades since her death and yet, she looked like she might just have gone down here for a nap.

“Shit!” I cursed. I had forgotten to keep an eye on my candle and accidentally dripped wax on my fingers.

“Close it, Lockwood,” Holly cried. “Close it before she –“

You know. Kills us all.

I was rapidly filled to the brim with anger. “ _This?_ This is what we came for? What we risked so much for?” I ranted. “Tony we need to get out of here now. _She_ won’t be happy we’ve disturbed her. Let’s go!”

But Tony was staring at the disgusting face, completely transfixed. He even leaned in to examine the body. “She seems relaxed enough so far,” he remarked, and I felt like shaking him.

“Who cares? Let’s just get out,” I argued.

“How do you reckon they kept her like this?” Tony wondered.

Cubbins shrugged. “Mummified?” he suggested, followed up by the entire mummification process. I cut him off before he could start reciting prayers to Anubis.

“Right, so mummification is _possible_. We get the idea.” I wrinkled my nose.

“All the same,” Tony continued absently. “I’ve never heard of a mummy looking quite like this.”

Then he did the unthinkable and stepped back across the iron chains.

“Lockwood. What are you doing?” Lucy hissed.

“It’s like she died yesterday,” he noted in that annoyingly dreamy voice of his.

Then he reached in and put his hand to the side of her face.

“Well, don’t _touch_ her,” I exclaimed in disgust.

“Ak! _Lockwood!”_ Lucy cringed next to me.

He poked his fingers deeper into the skin and I couldn’t look. I grabbed Lucy’s arm. I heard Holly do a sharp intake of breath and Cubbins gagging as the sound of something sticky peeling away filled the chamber.

Lucy was stiff as a board.

Then I heard Tony stepping away and I risked opening one eye just a bit. He stood in front of the coffin with a shit-eating grin, holding the woman’s face in his hand.

“It’s just a mask,” he chuckled. “Just a plastic mask and a wig. Look!” He laughed and held up the wig with the other hand.

I blinked and stood completely frozen for a moment before the ridiculousness of it hit me and I burst out laughing. The others soon followed, even if Holly at first only managed a few nervous chuckles.

Hesitantly, we stepped closer to the coffin. I gave the ‘corpse’ a small nudge with a finger. When nothing happened, I risked knocking on it a few times. It sounded hollow.

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s just a dummy made of wax. The mask was just there in case anyone looked inside.” Tony smiled.

“Lockwood, that has to be the _ickiest_ thing I’ve ever seen you do! And that’s saying something,” Lucy exclaimed.

I smirked. “Still doesn’t top mine. I once saw him reaching into his own nappy -"

“No!” Tony tried to cut me off and threw the mask and wig back in the coffin.

“Taking out a piece -"

“No, no, no, no, no!”

“of his poo -" I laughed when Tony tried to tackle me.

“And flung it -" Tony tried to cover my mouth with his hand but I dodged him.

“Shut up!” he shouted, but he was half laughing too.

“At my brother -"

He tried to charge me again.

“Like a demented baboon,” I finished in a chuckle.

Tony stopped fighting and stood, looking at the floor with a red face and an embarrassed smile.

“I’ll get back at you for that,” he warned, looking at me with narrowed eyes, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Best memory I have of you both,” I grinned at him.

When I looked at the others, Lucy was covering her mouth with her hand, but her eyes were narrow slits of silent laughter.

Holly was smiling widely, and Cubbins was still examining the dummy.

“You know, we need to go forward with this, right?” he said casually as if I hadn’t just told a superiorly embarrassing story about his employer.

Tony looked disgusted. “With my –“

“No, not with your poo, you idiot. With this whole charade,” I gestured at the coffin. “Take the mask and the wig to DEPRAC. Take it to the press,” I, for once, agreed with Cubbins.

Tony winced. “A good plan in theory, but you said it yourself before; DEPRAC is infiltrated. With both Fittes and Rotwell’s representatives in her pocket, Penelope practically owns DEPRAC.”

“Right.” I tapped the dummy another couple of times in a jaunty rhythm. “Barnes is good though.”

Holly offered me a piece of chocolate which I gladly accepted when she showed me the label with a wink. The chocolate the others were having was far lighter in colour and I was grateful she offered to share the good stuff with me.

I shuddered a bit from the cold.

“Yes, but even so, what does this even prove? The skull says that Marissa is Penelope, but it just sounds so ludicrous. Who’s going to believe us?” Holly asked rhetorically.

Lucy made an exasperated sigh. “Quill could you stop with that noise. It’s getting annoying.”

I frowned at her. “I’m not making any noise. I’m eating my chocolate. Same as you.”

It felt like a rat with exceptionally cold feet was crawling up my spine as Lucy looked around at all of us.

I pulled up the Orpheus glasses just in time to see the ghost fog spilling out of the coffin in thick tendrils.

A yellow, waxy hand was making its way up in jerky movements. I unfastened my rapier and swallowed the rest of my chocolate even though its bitterness left my mouth dry.

This was the sort of thing nightmares were made of. Heaven and hell knew we had enough of those to spare.

What was one more to the collection?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really happy to have writing as an outlet. Just had to cancel a ton of clients because the shut-down here has been prolonged again this evening. Hadn't really expected a re-opening, but still. It hurts enough to cry about every time.  
> Still better than the alternative though. I think a lot about you people in other countries and how you're coping with the pandemic, with the isolation and all the insecurity the future only seems to be holding.  
> I hope you're all as well as you can be and I hope the bit of childishness at the end of the chapter put a smile on your face.
> 
> Thank you for keeping up with this story <3


	43. Tough Customer

A few months after starting at Lockwood and co. George and Lockwood took me sightseeing.

We saw all the great tourist traps; the Fittes Museum, Rotwell’s Hall of Science, the House of Hauntings where the Sources of all the most famous and horrifying Visitors were displayed; usually murder weapons. We had free entrance as agents after dark, when the swimming lights of all the ghosts behind the Silver-Glass lit up the halls. One might think that this display of grisly artefacts would have grossed me out, but the thing I hated the most was Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

We walked through those halls and the empty, lifeless faces in there gave me the creeps in a way that no Visitor had managed yet.

Until now that is.

Because this monstrous being before us combined two of my nightmares and apparently that quadrupled the effect.

The spasmodic movements of the wax figure made me nauseous and the sound it made was not making things better. As it moved, the wax crackled and broke apart. The coffin was full to the brim of ghost fog so we couldn’t see what we were up against clearly. Part of me really didn’t want to.

For several precious moments we were all frozen in shock. Here we were, five of the best and most experienced agents, making the most basic mistakes at a potentially haunted site.

Never let your guard down.

Never stop using your Talents.

Never turn your back on a coffin.

Never stray away from the chains.

Especially Quill, the former Fittes _supervisor_ should know better and he was the one closest to the coffin.

“Behind the chains!” Lockwood ordered.

We gathered our wits and finally moved out of our stupor but the problem about a surprise like that?

Panic. And panic makes you do stupid things.

Lockwood was already throwing a flare from his belt. Quill had drawn his rapier and put on the Orpheus glasses.

I myself was moving far too slowly. Panic had gotten the best of me and I froze.

Lockwood’s flare soared and in spite of the sudden gale of wind, it landed just on the edge of the coffin where it exploded. We were all used to the effects of flares, but maybe the coffin was lined with something or something else went wrong because this time the explosion was far louder and far brighter than it ought to be.

Quill who had been right next to it cried out in pain.

“Quill!” Lockwood called out.

Quill was directly at the foot of the coffin on his hands and knees. The Orpheus glasses were on the floor. He was blinking rapidly and holding his left ear. He was clearly disoriented.

Lockwood came to me with the intention of bringing me to safety behind the chains but in their mad scramble, Holly and George had both stumbled over them, knocking them completely out of place. We had forgotten the padlocks.

“Fix the chains!” I told him and waved him in the direction of where Holly and George were trying to mend our defences.

He looked taken aback that I was suddenly the one giving orders, but I didn’t wait to make a discussion out of it.

I forced myself against the storm this ghost had cooked up. The psychic energy it displayed did not bode well for our chances of survival, but we were agents. We fought.

The wind tried to push me back, making each step feel like I was walking through syrup. In spite of that, I slowly made my way to where Quill was trying to get up without luck.

When I reached him, I let myself fall to my knees and quickly picked up the Orpheus glasses that had been sliding away with the wind.

I pushed them into his hand. “Put them on!” I yelled.

He nodded, still slightly dazed. He had small burns on the side of his face and blood was dripping out of his ear.

“We need to go!” I pointed at the others who were still struggling with the chains.

He nodded again and tried to stand on his feet, but he fell once more. I looped my arm around him to support him.

The ghost fog which had thickened into ectoplasm started spilling over the edges of the coffin, sizzling at our boots. I couldn’t let Quill fall one more time or he would inevitably touch it with his bare skin.

Behind us in the coffin, blazing white flames still burned from Lockwood’s flare. The lining had caught fire and I could hear – and smell the burning wax from the dummy.

Together, Quill and I stumbled across the room to the others, buffeted by winds coming from all directions with ectoplasm curling up against our ankles.

By the time we reached the others the ectoplasm was covering the chains entirely. It was futile to try to put them back together. Attempting to do so would only get us ghost touched.

“Forget the chains!” Lockwood yelled and threw a salt bomb instead. The salt scattered, and for a moment it seemed to make a difference against the plasm. but it didn’t last long.

“We need to go!” I pointed out.

Lockwood looked like he was about to argue but he was cut off by an unpleasant cracking sound.

All as one, we turned our heads. Even Quill lifted his head to look at the coffin where the wax-figure with its yellow melting wax and distorted face was sitting up.

“What _is_ that thing?” Quill groaned.

“A Revenant!” Lockwood gasped. “It’s got to be.”

“But the wax –“

“The bones are cast _inside_ the wax. The ghost animates the bones which are covered in the wax.”

Holly and George both threw salt bombs.

Not me though. Now that the first horror had passed and there were no more explosions, my psychic senses picked up on something.

 _“Marissa Fittes!”_ A voice called out. “ _Marissa!”_

It was the ghost in front of us who was calling out.

“Fall back to the stairs!” Lockwood ordered.

“Help Quill!” I told George who didn’t even complain when I shifted Quill’s weight from my own shoulder to his.

I took a step closer to the ghost and really opened up to it.

 _“Marissa!”_ The ghost was so full of sorrow, despair, and rage that it made me gasp and stagger.

Lockwood grabbed my arm and pulled me back with the others.

“Throw flares!” he yelled.

Three flares went flying. Two went in the coffin with perfect precision and one ended up in the other end of the room.

“Kipps is throwing off my aim,” George excused himself.

The noise of the explosions cancelled out the voice of the ghost and when the noise had died down it seemed to have gone silent for good.

I squinted to look through the sharp silver-white light of the magnesium flames.

“Did we get it?” Holly asked.

“I think we did,” George nodded.

_“Marissa!”_

“No, we didn’t. We really, really didn’t” I informed them.

The fire burned down to embers and the silhouette of the grotesque figure stood there in the coffin.

Then it started to crawl out.

“What? How does it do that?” Holly complained.

Lockwood’s eyes were as large as saucers as he saw the abomination put a hand directly on the silver on the edge of the casket.

“Maybe the wax protects it somehow,” he guessed.

_“Marissa!”_

I gasped when the fury of the ghost washed over me again.

“It’s calling out for Marissa!” I told the others.

“Really?” George corrected his glasses. “Do you think maybe she murdered whoever it was and left them down here?”

“I don’t know, but whoever it is, they’re not happy!”

“I would be grumpy too, if I was murdered, dumped in wax and left to rot,” Holly remarked.

“Fascinating. I wonder who it is?” George mused.

Quill lifted his head and squinted at the scene. “Well, as _fascinating_ as the identity of this thing is, I’m more worried about the fact that it’s angry, coming towards us and we still have a booby-trapped staircase to climb,” he groaned and pressed a hand against his ear.

“Good point, Quill! Up the stairs and look out for traps.” Lockwood threw over his shoulder.

Holly hesitated but went up the stairs first. She was smart like that – she could defend the others as Quill was virtually out of commission and George was weighed down by Quill.

Lockwood and I would defend them from the bottom.

“You too Luce,” Lockwood told me without looking at me as I hung back. I drew my rapier.

“You’re going to do something stupid. I know you; I can tell.”

He made a short grin before going into serious focus again.

“That makes two of us then. What’s your daft plan?” he asked, brushing hair out of his eyes.

“The usual, you know. Try to reason with it. Calm it down.”

He shrugged. “Thought I’d slow it down by cutting off its legs.”

“Figures,” I chuckled.

“He doesn’t know this side of you,” he remarked out of the blue.

“What?”

“Quill. He doesn’t know the wild side of you,”

I scoffed. “You’re one to speak.”

He looked at me with a crooked grin. “That’s what I mean. You and I are the same.”

And then I stood there, at the most inopportune time, holding off a powerful ghost, taking a moment to think that we really weren’t.

Okay, maybe we were alike in some ways. We both took risks, but I took them for a reason. I took risks to try and understand the ghosts and try to solve the Problem in a different way. Lockwood often just took risks for the hell of it.

“I'll have to disagree, but maybe this is not the best time for that discussion,”

“All I’m saying is that I know you better than he does,” he argued.

“I – now is really not the time, Lockwood!”

“I'd say this is as good a time as any,”

“No!” I insisted. “Because this is going to turn into an argument and the situation is bad enough as it is,”

“If we don’t make it out alive, I might return as a Visitor because of this unfinished business,” he goaded.

That was blackmail.

“Then that should be great motivation to make it out alive, wouldn’t you say?” I ground out. “I’m going to try talking to it.”

“Fine,” he relented. “I’ll give you twenty seconds,”

We backed slowly up to the bottom of the stairs where we stood close together, ready to make a run for it.

The figure was starting to move faster. With each joint freed from the wax, it moved more fluently.

Parts of the wax had broken off. Other parts were melting. Bits and stumps of bone were visible. One of the flares had hit it on the head, distorting the wax and splintering it, revealing a bare scalp and parts of an empty eye-socket. The rest of the wax on the face was charred and melting, making it grotesque-looking in a way the skull in the jar had never achieved.

It was completely out of the coffin now, standing up, but it was stumbling about without proper coordination, probably because the wax was weighing it down unevenly.

I focused on opening up to it.

“Who are you?” I asked it. “What did Marissa do to you?”

It didn’t respond or react in any way.

“We can help you. What’s your name?” I tried again.

The ghost just kept coming towards us.

“We can help you,” I tried one more time. “We can avenge you,”

The wax dripping from the eyes looked like tears.

_“Marissa,”_

“Last chance Luce,” Lockwood mumbled at my side, ready with his rapier. “I think you’re being too subtle. It doesn’t understand. Move away.”

“I’ve got to try, Lockwood.” I argued.

“Lucy,” Lockwood said warningly.

The ghost was stretching its arms out, coming towards us.

“We’re enemies of Marissa,” I tried one last time. “We can help y – Ow!”

Lockwood pushed me hard to the side when the thing made a sudden surge.

Rather than cutting off its legs, his rapier became stuck in the thick wax, covering its torso.

The wax-figure cornered me against the side of the stairs, grappling for my throat.

Lockwood climbed a few steps and kicked the figure away. He thrust his hand down towards me.

“Let’s go, Luce!”

He pulled me up on the stairs and we started running upwards. As we did, he turned on his torch so we could see the steps.

“You and your ghost-talking – you almost got yourself killed!” he fumed.

“Well, you were going to cut off its legs! How did that go?” I forced out between breaths.

“I lost my best rapier was how it went. Apart from that it was a wild success,” he snarked.

I looked behind us where the thing was coming at us on all fours. Ectoplasm made the visible bones glow blue.

“It’s coming up fast,” I warned Lockwood.

“It’s fine, we’re faster, as long as there are no hitches up ahead – Oh hell. _Now_ what?”

The others came stumbling down.

“What are you _doing?”_ I cried. “It’s right behind us!”

“There’s one up ahead too. George triggered the wire,” Holly explained.

“It was my fault,” Quill gasped, “I tripped.”

At least he was looking a little bit more clear-headed, even if he still blinked hard sometimes and clutched his forehead.

“Where’s this new ghost?” Lockwood demanded and pushed past the others.

Up ahead we found the wire where a hollow stone hung open.

The ghost of an old woman was hovering up ahead. She was all grey and smiling maniacally.

Lockwood scoffed. “A little old lady? Are you serious? You have rapiers, why don’t you use them?”

George gestured at the dark void on either side of the steps.

“It raises some sort of powerful wind. We tried – it almost blew us over the side.”

Lockwood looked at him incredulously, “You’ve got to be kidding me. What are we, Bunchurch and co? Give me that thing,”

He roughly grabbed the rapier out of Georges hand and leaped across the tripwire.

Instantly the ghost came to life. The demented smile widened impossibly more, and its hair and clothes billowed around it. Cold winds of hurricane strength swept across the stairs, pitching Lockwood sideways. He cried out and only just avoided being pushed off.

 _“So, how’s it going?”_ An annoyingly casual voice asked in my ear.

“How does it look like it’s going?” I bit out, looking on as Lockwood crouched lower on the stairs, trying to creep closer to the ghost.

_“Well, it looks a bit like I’ve only been goon for like, five minutes and in that time you’ve managed to trigger two ghosts, get sandwiched between them on a narrow staircase at the edge of an abyss. By any standard, I’d probably call that poor. You’ll probably be wanting a clever solution to your problem, right?”_

I huffed. “Well, do you have any ideas?”

_“Of course, I do. But first I want an answer. When are you going to let me out of this jar?”_

“Not you too! This is _not the time_ for that sort of discussions!” I whined.

_“It’s the perfect time for this discussion,”_

“We’ll talk at home!” I promised.

 _“Ah, but you never talk to me at home. You ignore me. I get stuffed into a corner with salt an iron and other equipment. Maybe I should ignore you now,”_ It threatened.

“I – tomorrow! I promise you; we’ll talk about it tomorrow! Please!” I begged.

The skull made a small huffing sound. _“Fine. But I still want to go home with Quill.”_

“Fine!” I didn’t feel like this was the time to tell it that I didn’t think Quill should be home alone in his state and that he would most likely come with us to Portland Row. “Now what’s the answer?”

_“It’s quite embarrassing for you really, that you haven’t figured it out yet.”_

“Just get on with it!”

A ghostly sigh. _“Fine. But you’ll never hear the end of this. A ghost is tied to its Source, yes? Well, the thing coming up from the bottom is bringing its Source with it. But what about the cheerful one?”_

My eyes widened. The skull was right. It was embarrassing.

I scrambled upwards to get to the hollow stone. I thrust my arm in there, grappling around to find the Source.

I found it quickly and took it in a hard grip, even though the cold of it burned my fingers.

“Eew. Why is it teeth?”

_“Stop whining and get rid of them!”_

I looked around. For once, I didn’t have any sort of Seal whatsoever so had to improvise.

I hurled it as hard and far as I could and prayed to whatever deity I could think of that it would work.

I looked up at the ghost of the smiling woman and almost laughed when she was comically pulled sideways, following her Source.

The wind died down, following her on her way into the abyss.

Lockwood stood and righted himself. He was about to say something but was cut off by Holly.

“Run!” she screamed.

 _“Marissa!”_ The Revenant was almost upon us. It was crawling rapidly on all fours, and still had Lockwood’s sword stuck in its chest. The skeleton was almost fully exposed, and you could hear the bone scraping on the stone as well as the sword when it hit the steps.

We ran. Lockwood in the lead, then Holly, then me and George with Quill at the end.

George yelped. Quill had slipped on the stairs and taken George down with him.

They struggled to get back up.

“George!” I heard myself shriek when the Revenant hovered above them. I tried to pull my rapier, but I wasn’t fast enough.

Then Holly was there.

Beautiful, gentle, amazing Holly.

With a roar to make the most ferocious Amazon proud, she jumped down three steps and slashed out with her rapier over the heads of Quill and George. She decapitated the Revenant, giving the boys time to get back up.

She didn’t waste any time, though, but kept on jumping up the stairs like a deer or an elegant mountain goat.

I recovered from my shock and readied my own rapier. I let Quill and George pass me, so I made up the rear, running almost backwards up the stairs, holding off the ghost.

 _“Marissa!”_ it reached out for me.

 _“Wow, it_ really _wants to get you.”_ The skull commented.

“You think?” I gasped.

_“Look at it. The plasm’s breaking free. If you’re not careful, it’ll leave the bones behind entirely. Better speed up!”_

“I’m trying!” I groaned.

_“What, you want me to cheer you on?”_

I right on the heels of the others and the rectangle of light that was coming closer, spurred me on.

Then a sudden jerk stopped my ascent. I cried out. My rucksack had snagged on something and I was starting to move backwards.

Then Holly and George were there, each grabbing one of my arms, pulling so hard it felt they were about to pop out of their sockets.

The rucksack was released, and we wasted no time but surged upwards.

When we finally reached the surface, Lockwood and Quill were already standing with the flagstone, ready to close the grave back up.

There was no time for discretion. As soon as I as the last one was up, they slammed it down with a great big reverberating boom exactly as a skeletal hand was reaching up.

I threw off my rucksack and cursed when I saw the large claw marks on it.

I threw myself on the flagstone, gasping for breath. My throat and lungs were burning with the exertion and I could taste blood.

“We made it!” Holly marvelled and sat down next to me.

“I can’t believe we made it,” Quill chuckled incredulously and then winced.

_“Well, that was fun. Lucky this flagstone is lined with iron eh?”_

I frowned. “I – I don’t think,”

_“Silver then? Too expensive?”_

Finally, the penny dropped, and I scrambled off the flagstone.

“Off, off, off!” I pushed Holly.

Tendrils of ice were spreading across the flagstone and slowly the ghost rose through the floor.

It had left its bones behind and appeared now as a person. The head came through first. A lined and creased face. Large eyebrows and long hair. It was the ghost of a man and he was staring straight at me.

The others were scrambling for weapons but all I could think of was backing the hell away. I half ran backwards until my back hit the wall.

Then at the speed of sound it was right upon me. It stretched out a hand as if to cup my face and I shrunk away from it.

I heard shouting in the background, but I couldn’t hear what was said. The ghost was emanating so much heartbreak and loneliness that I couldn’t help but feel empty myself and I felt a tear running down my cheek, not from fear but from sympathy.

“Lucy! Roll out of the way!” I heard Lockwood yelling. I saw him coming closer out of the corner of my eye, holding a flare.

“No,” I held him off with a hand.

 _“Marissa Fittes. Bring her to me,”_ The ghost ordered.

Then it blinked out of existence.

The air pressure changed. It felt as if a giant had been standing on my chest and just stepped off.

I fell forward on my hands and knees.

“What did it do to you?” Lockwood demanded.

“Nothing, I –“ I swallowed. “Have we ever had a ghost client?” I asked almost rhetorically.

Lockwood scoffed. “Of course not.”

“I think we’ve just been given a job.”

Lockwood closed his eyes and made a long-suffering sigh. “Of course, we have.”

I looked around at the others as I got up “What are we going to do about Quill? I think he has a concussion.”

As if to confirm that theory, Quill threw up to the side.

_“Eew. Not sure I want to go home with him anymore,”_

I wrinkled my nose.

Lockwood gave another sigh and gave Quill an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that.”

“You’re forgiven if you give me your water bottle.”

Lockwood gave it to him immediately and ran a hand through his hair while Quill rinsed his mouth.

“We need to go home, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we get one of those ‘routine inspections’ that DEPRAC started tomorrow morning. If they see you there, we’ll have an explanatory problem. You’re supposed to be retired –“

Quill chuckled. “Trust me, I’m aware.”

“So, how’s it going to look, having you there, injured?” Lockwood asked rhetorically.

Quill shrugged. “I’ll just go home. It’s fine.”

Holly shook her head. “You really shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“Can you go with him, Holly?” Lockwood requested.

Holly winced. “I can, but I need to get home soon too.”

Lockwood leaned his head back and scowled at the ceiling as if he were daring God to just smite him and get it over with.

“Lucy then?” he sighed. “Will you go home with Quill and make sure he’s alright?”

I shrugged. “Might as well repay the favour.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for keeping up with the story. It's getting sort of long-ish, isn't it?  
> Borrowed from Stroud again today.
> 
> Please, please, please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of the chapter or just the story in general!


	44. To Be Continued

Jameson was the porter tonight. He barely lifted an eyebrow when we stumbled through the foyer as the sky began to lighten at the horizon, even if we were dirty like hell and stunk of fire from that same place. That was the sort of service one got from generous tipping and polite conversation.

One of the things I’d learned from my mother – the people who work for us are the ones who made the wheels turn. Without them we were nothing. ‘ _Treat them fairly and with respect. Pay them generously. If they show you disrespect in return, you fire them. And you don’t dawdle about it either.’_

Jameson was one such person. It only took a few words to the right people and we could be dead or arrested within the hour. But I liked Jameson and I trusted him. I gave him an apologetic smile and a shrug, and he gave me a nod in return.

We were dead on our feet. None of us had energy to climb the stairs and by silent agreement we trudged into the small lift.

It slowly went upwards, and I almost fell asleep against the wooden panel.

The ‘ _ding'_ sounded weird.

I fumbled with my keys. I was nauseous. If I didn’t hurry, I would barf in the hallway.

Finally, I managed to get us inside.

My head was pounding. Lucy turned on the lights which made me wince.

“Can’t we just please just use the lamp on the side-table?” I begged pathetically.

Holly went to turn it on as Lucy turned the lights back off. I sighed in relief.

“I need a shower,” I groaned.

Holly grimaced. “Just try not to get your ear wet. I think maybe you burst your eardrum.”

“That explains a lot,” I grumbled. Like the fact that it sounded like we were walking around in an indoor swimming pool.

“Just go have your shower but don’t wash the left side of your face. We’ll do that after. You have some small wounds we need to clean too.” Holly waved me off towards the bathroom.

I sighed. “The kit is in the office in the second cupboard to the left.”

I accidentally bumped into the doorframe when I went to the bathroom. That sort of set the tone for the whole experience.

I had a quick shower in which I almost fell asleep again. Happy I hadn’t taken the tub. Every movement felt heavy and slightly uncoordinated. My ear felt strange. Like there was a wind going through it.

I didn’t have the courage to wash my hair. An old colleague of mine had burst an eardrum in an encounter with a Screaming Spirit. She had gotten an infection afterwards and lost all hearing on one ear.

Instead, I took a comb and ran it through my hair again and again, combing out bits of salt, magnesium, sand, rubble, and small pieces of wax that I cringed at.

In fact, it would be a long time before I could look at candles in quite the same way again. The idea of a candlelit dinner suddenly seemed far from romantic.

When I couldn’t get any more out and my hair was standing up from static, I put on a t-shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms and joined the girls in the kitchen.

Holly was speaking when I arrived. “Lucy, I think it might be better if you had a shower and I’ll patch up Quill in the meantime. I’ll need to get going soon. If that’s alright with you of course,” she added to me when I walked through the door.

I scoffed. “Of course, it’s alright. Lucy can do whatever the hell she wants here.”

Lucy squeezed my arm lightly before passing me.

I grabbed her hand before she went too far. “You can just take some clean clothes from my bedroom,” I offered.

She gave me a small smile. “That’s becoming a recurring theme, isn’t it?”

I made a small snort. “I suppose.”

She kissed me on the cheek and went down the hall. I stared after her as she walked all the way down.

When I turned my head back around it was to a supremely smug looking Holly.

“Shut up,” I told her.

She smiled widely and raised her hands defensively. “I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t need to,” I grumbled.

She shook her head. “Just sit down.”

“In a moment.”

I went to Lucy’s bag and fished the jar out of it.

I took it with me in the living room, put it on the coffee table and sat down in front of it on the sofa.

I sighed deeply and rubbed my face. “Thank you for tonight, skull. While I don’t wholeheartedly approve of the first bit, even if it was funny like hell, I reckon that we probably owe a lot of our success to you. So, thank you for your help.”

The face in the plasm rolled its eyes.

I put the film on for it.

“Enjoy,” I told it and returned to the kitchen.

Holly looked at me, a bit disgusted. “Why you bother with that thing, I’ll never know.”

I shrugged and sat down in the chair in front of her. “It doesn’t hurt to be a little nice,”

She scoffed. “I just mostly feel like throwing it out of the window. It’s disgusting,”

I laughed. “I’d be happy to take it, but it isn’t up to me. I doubt that Lucy will ever part with it,”

Holly smiled and shook her head. “You'll just have to take her too.”

I sighed heavily and looked at my hands. They weren’t dirty anymore, but they had gotten a few scrapes. “Just drop it. It’s not going to happen.”

“Maybe it won’t, maybe it will,” she shrugged. “You never know. Hold still.”

She grabbed my face and held it in the position she wanted it in. Then she got to work with tweezers, picking out small bits of the same sort of debris I had in my hair, out of the side of my face.

“I’m not Apollo, Holly. I’m not going to chase someone who doesn’t want to be chased.”

“You can be so dramatic sometimes,” she chuckled, and my cheeks might have gone a bit pink. “Anyway, Lucy doesn’t exactly strike me as someone begging to be turned into a tree any time soon. Just let things happen, Quill. Don’t give up on her.”

I gave her a rueful smile. “Don’t think I could do that even if I tried,” I shrugged in a way I hoped looked careless. “Hell, I _have_ tried.”

I winced when she started cleaning the small wounds with disinfectant.

“How is Kate doing?” I jumped when Lucy re-entered the kitchen with wet hair, barefoot, in my t-shirt and a pair of my gym shorts.

I blinked a bit to get my brain to make an attempt at functioning. “I uh – Last I heard, she was doing okay. She might get appointed to one of the positions with the police next month.”

Holly looked at the clock before turning to us. “I need to go. You,” she pointed at me, “need to go to bed, and you,” she pointed at Lucy, “have to wake him up every two hours. If you can’t wake him up, you call the hospital immediately.”

She gave us both hugs goodbye and before we knew it, we were alone. Well, with the skull in the living room, but still.

“They’ve been keeping me away from the major gathering points as much as possible. The furnaces, DEPRAC headquarters and so on.” Lucy crossed her arms in front of her. “It’s getting ridiculous. It’s not like people believe that I could split the two of you up anyway.”

I snorted. “Trust me. They do.” I looked at my hands again before looking up at her and gave her a smile. “I forgot to tell you, but last week I met some old colleagues who, congratulated me for snagging you up. Met them at the supermarket.”

My smile widened when she blushed heavily.

“They wanted details of course.”

Lucy’s eyes went bigger and she looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “What – what sort of details?”

“The sort of details I told them we prefer to keep private,” I grinned and waggled my eyebrows a bit.

She punched me in the shoulder “You arse!”

I laughed, even though it hurt my head. “What, would you rather I invented something sordid?”

She blushed even more profusely and looked at her feet. “No.”

“I just said what I would have said otherwise in a situation like that.”

She crossed her arms in front of herself. “Is that a situation you often find yourself in?”

I smiled at her. “Nope. Which is probably why they found it so interesting. Well, that, and then the fact that it was about Lucy Carlyle.”

“Why on earth would that make it interesting?” she rolled her eyes.

I shook my head in exasperation. “You really have no idea?”

“No idea about what?” she huffed impatiently.

“That about half the boys in London want you in their beds.” I smiled widely, looking at her as she took in that information.

Rather than blushing as I had expected, she made a face at me. “I don’t believe you, but now I just feel super grossed out. Thanks a lot.” She snarked.

I laughed, but it turned into a wince when it felt like my head was being split in two. I still couldn’t stop a chuckle or two from escaping as I clutched my poor forehead.

Lucy pushed me gently. “Go to bed. I’ll stay on the sofa.”

“The skull is watching television.” I told her.

She shook her head with a smile. “Then I’ll go and sleep with the knives.”

I grimaced. “that might be problematic. I dropped an entire bottle of tarnish remover in there this morning and I haven’t cleaned it properly. I just about had time to open the windows before I had to go. If you go in there, your brain will be more damaged than mine.”

“Sofa it is then.” She rolled her eyes. “Been a while since I fell asleep in front of the television anyway.”

“There’s no television at Portland Row.” I remembered. “Did you fall asleep a lot like that when you lived at home?”

She considered the question longer than I thought it warranted.

“Not on purpose,”

I snorted. “I hardly think most people fall asleep in front of the television on purpose.”

She smiled. “No, not like that.” She took a deep breath. “When I was little, I didn’t have a bed.”

I blinked at her a bit uncomprehendingly. “How?” I ended up asking.

“That’s a long story.” She crossed her arms again and stared at her bare feet.

I took one of her hands and she let the other fall. “I’ve got time.”

She shook her head at me with a chuckle. “No, you don’t. You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

I bit my lip. “Then come with me. Tell me a bedtime story.”

I started down the hall towards the bedroom, and she reluctantly trailed behind me.

“Aren’t bedtime stories supposed to be cheerful?” she asked rhetorically.

I snorted. “As cheerful as the Red Riding hood and her grandmother being eaten by a wolf? Or Timothy being Ghost Touched by the spirit of the Black Knight?”

Lucy scoffed. “They all ended well, didn’t they?”

I turned around to look at her. “And your story doesn’t?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again with a frown.

“It hasn’t ended yet, has it?” I grinned at her. “No matter what the story contains, it isn’t over. When you don’t have any more to tell, you’ll just say; ‘to be continued’ and then we’ll take it from there.”

She smiled at me and her eyes looked a bit wet.

I had been exhausted. Ready to pass out on the kitchen table. Now I felt more awake than I ever had in my entire life even if I was a bit dizzy.

Turned on the small lamp on the nightstand and sat down on the bed.

Lucy looked around a bit and then started to walk back out. “I’ll just go get a chair.”

“The hell you will. Just get down here.”

She squealed when I grabbed her around the waist and rolled us over. Now we were lying on top of the covers, facing each other.

God, she was beautiful as she was lying there, red cheeked and smiling widely. I could wax poetics about it for days.

“Tell me,” I prompted and tried to get comfortable.

Her smile fell just a bit, but it didn’t disappear entirely.

“I’m the youngest of seven girls,” she started with.

I nodded. “That’s a lot of children,”

She chuckled. “I think we all agree on that.” She bit her lip. “My mum didn’t actually want to have all of us. I think she wanted to stop after number four, but my dad wanted a son and uh – he didn’t want to stop.”

I frowned. “Your dad sounds like an idiot,” I told her bluntly to her apparent amusement. “Seriously. I’m happy you came out of it, but he sounds like a wanker.”

My verbal filter seemed to have been affected by the concussion. It felt a bit like being drunk, but without the fun bit.

She smiled widely enough for someone who just had her father insulted though.

“You have no idea. Anyway, it just wasn’t practical to have that many children. The house they had was built for maybe four people, but nine had to live in it. There wasn’t room enough or beds enough. When I was a wee baby –“

“Say that again.” I interrupted.

“What? When I was a baby?”

“No, you said something before you said baby,”

She frowned at me. “Little?”

“Mm no, that’s not what you said.”

Her cheeks went a little pink. “Wee?”

I felt my smile widen. It was adorable. “Say it again.”

She shoved me a bit and went a bit pinker, but she humoured me with a demonstrative eyeroll. “When I was a _wee_ baby, I actually didn’t have a cradle because my sister Mary was sleeping in the one we had. I slept in a dresser drawer. Then when I was about two perhaps, I got to share a cot with my sister, Elisabeth. She’s the oldest. There are twelve years between us. Her and Emma were mostly in charge of us younger ones. Sarah, Mary and me.”

“What about your parents?” I couldn’t help but ask.

She frowned a bit and shifted to support her head with her hand. “Well, my mum worked hard and when she came home, she would be tired. She didn’t have patience for any of us. She expected food on the table and a clean house. Then if everything was in order, she would go to watch television.”

I hesitated. “What if everything _wasn’t_ in order?” I asked slowly.

“Then it _got put_ in order. _Fast._ As I said, she didn’t have any patience so if something was done wrong, you very quickly learned to do them right.”

She bit her lip and turned her focus on the pattern of the duvet, following the lines with a finger. “She could have a heavy hand if things were not the way she wanted them,” she admitted.

I frowned a bit. “And your dad? You said he wouldn’t let you get away with anything. I suppose that means...”

She gave me a strange little smile. “I did say that didn’t I? He worked at the train station. When he wasn’t working, he was at the pub. Sometimes they cut him off when he’d had too much. We would usually pretend to sleep if he came home early. Sometimes, at the end of the month when he didn’t have any more money to drink for, he would come home after work and it was…” she trailed off in a memory.

She startled when I put my hand on top of hers. I ran my thumb slowly over the ups and downs of her knuckles, waiting for her to continue at her own pace.

“My dad was not a good man. But he died when I was still small, so that’s one less thing to worry about,” she chuckled fragilely.

“See, I knew he was a wanker,” I remarked, and she laughed for real.

“After that, things were mostly uneventful. I grew too big to share a bed with Elisabeth and I had this habit of repeating what the ghosts were saying out in the streets,” she grinned mischievously, “So none of the others wanted to share with me. I slept in the living room while my mum was watching television.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of little Lucy, scaring the shit out of her sisters with her Talent.

“Have you ever invented a ghost?” I asked her with a grin.

She shook her head.

“My brother is two years younger than me and he never had any sort of Talent, so sometimes, to tease him a bit and keep him in line, I would invent some horrific spirit to scare him with,”

“No!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “You are absolutely awful!”

I raised my hands defensively. “I did what I had to do. He gave me _plenty_ of shit in return.”

“Alright, I’ve scared my sisters plenty, but I’ve never resorted to inventing things. There were horrors enough to spare where I’m from. The ‘agency’ there makes Bunchurch look like a well-oiled machine.”

“Is that where you started?”

She made a derisive snort. “I started there, part time when I was six and went full time when I turned eight.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Full time at eight? But that’s illegal.” I pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. “Just because things are illegal, it doesn’t mean people don’t do it.”

I conceded her point. Exhibit A would be ourselves, breaking and entering a few hours earlier.

“You didn’t finish school then,” I realised.

She blushed and bit her lip, staring intensely at the pattern on the duvet again.

“Hey,” I tried to catch her eye. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t your choice.”

“Lockwood said that it didn’t matter at all. That it only matters that I’m a good agent,” she said in a small voice.

“Yes, well. Tony has never exactly been known to plan ahead. Would you like some help with the exams?” I offered.

She huffed a small laugh. “George is already on the case.”

“Ah. Never tell him that I said it, but I reckon you’re in good hands with Cubbins. He’s great with academics. But if you need anything, just let me know.”

She nodded and stuck the bare parts of her legs under the duvet. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the one behind her to cover her with.

“Thank you.”

“I don’t think I like your mum,” I told her bluntly.

She laughed. But it was the bitter sort. “Doesn’t matter if you like her or not. I don’t have her anymore anyway. She disowned me.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Why on earth would she do that?”

She pressed her lips hard together and I thought she might not want to tell me.

Then she took a deep breath and started. “When I first started, my mum made an agreement with Jacobs and my entire salary went directly into her account.”

“But that’s –“

“Illegal, yes. We’ve already established that some people don’t care about that. Anyway, that continued the entire time when I worked there. Then when I came down here, there was a few weeks where I didn’t have a job and she was angry that I didn’t send money home, so when I started with Lockwood, I sent my entire first salary, except for the part of the food I pay and a bit that I was saving for emergencies. And then I sort of just continued to do that every month. She was cross with me when I left from there because I had to pay rent in Tooting, and I couldn’t send her as much.”

I didn’t know what to say. I interlaced our fingers instead and she smiled a bit at that.

“Anyway. After a talk with Holly a while ago, I decided to stop sending her money and she more or less said that that was the only use she had of me and that I shouldn’t bother coming back.”

I closed my eyes for a few seconds, trying to keep my temper in check.

I pursed my lips, trying to find the right words.

“I know that it’s probably easy enough for me to say with the way I grew up. There’s probably a lot of things I take for granted – I _know_ that there are a lot of things I take for granted, but money isn’t everything. It makes life easier, sure, but money can’t buy friends or family,” I swallowed.

I moved my hand up to rub her arm and push a bit of hair that had been bothering me away from her face.

“I know that nothing can replace her – your mum. But the people you are surrounded by, care about you deeply. We all do, so much. If you’re ever in need of people to call family, you don’t have to look any further than the people you live with.”

“I don’t live with you,” she was quick to point out.

I blushed a bit. “No, but that’s a bit different, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

I wanted to tell her. I _needed_ to tell her. It was right at the tip of my tongue, all my hopes and dreams that would scare her away. All those unrealistic ideas of the other sort of family I was thinking myself in with her, but I couldn’t burden her with that.

It was all there, in my chest, in my throat, in my mouth, on my tongue. Words that were begging and threatening to spill and ruin everything, because what we had right here; just talking, being together – that was enough. If that were all I could have with her, that _had_ to be enough.

“You haven’t known me for as long as you’ve known the others,” I pointed out with a yawn instead.

She smiled widely. “It’s a bit odd, but I keep forgetting that. Is it awful that I used to think you were somewhat of a uh – pompous prick, back then?”

I laughed aloud and winced when pain shot through my skull. “Well, I _am_ somewhat of a pompous prick,” I had to confess, which made her laugh in turn.

My eyes were starting to feel heavy. “I think I need to sleep soon,” I admitted.

Lucy shook her head. “I think you needed to sleep a long time ago,”

“But I don’t want to sleep,” I heard myself whine.

She chuckled. “But you need to. Holly said so.”

“Holly is mean.” I sulked.

Lucy shook her head. “I thought she was _delightful_.”

I snorted. “Wolf in sheepskin,”

She looked at me funny.

“Why don’t you want to sleep?”

“‘cause if I fall asleep you’ll leave. ‘N I don’t want you to go.”

Her eyes softened and she sighed heavily. “I’ll stay,”

“Promise?”

I could hear how ridiculously pathetic I sounded, but I had a hard time bringing myself to care.

She sat up on her knees and reached over so she was almost on top of me to reach the bedside table.

“I just need to set your alarm clock. You have to wake up again in two hours.”

I groaned and put my arms around her.

“But I don’t want to go to school,” I grumbled to her amusement.

She rolled off me and out of my reach. I could feel my eyes drooping.

“Don’t you need to call in sick for work or something too?”

“Urgh. I don’t want to deal with my mum. You do it.”

She lifted an eyebrow at me. “We'll see when you wake up.”

I barely registered the words because I was already falling asleep.

My last thought was that if this were the view I would fall asleep to every time, I hit my head, I ought to do it more often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My husband has an accent and I sometimes make him repeat things because it sounds so funny and adorable. It's one of my favourite things ❤
> 
> Can I just say again, how honored I am that so many people apparently keep up with this fic? I didn't have any hope or imagination that this would gain this much traction when I first started writing it. Holy hell.  
> So thank you for reading, dear reader
> 
> Please spoil me by leaving a comment 💌 you have no idea how happy that would make me


	45. Salty

_Lucy:_

Kisses fell on my shoulders. Slowly, they travelled up my neck and I sighed.

“So much for not waking up like this anymore,” he whispered in my ear.

I stretched and smiled widely. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I chuckled.

“No, obviously, you don’t,”

I felt a chill and turned around to be faced with Lockwood’s frowning face.

Then Lockwood’s face turned more wrinkled and transparent.

_“Marissa! Bring her to me! Do you want your donut’s with or without filling?”_

I woke up with a jolt.

“Already?” Quill groaned and turned around.

I sat up and looked at the clock as well.

“It’s only been forty-five minutes. We can say two hours from now, right?” He whined.

“No, because you need to phone your mum. If you wait an extra forty-five minutes, it’ll be too late, and she’ll be cross with you.” I pointed out and wrinkled my nose. Why did I know Quill’s working hours anyway?

“Right,” he grunted. “Come on. Back to sleep.” He patted the spot next to him where I’d just been lying.

I laid down with a sigh and turned my back to Quill. His arm wound around my waist and I lifted my head almost automatically to let him slip his other arm under it.

He pulled me closer, so my back was against his chest. I felt his nose at the base of my neck. “Sleep,” he whispered against my skin.

I couldn’t help the smile that spread on my face in spite of the small pit that was forming in my stomach.

I slowly fell back asleep with Lockwood’s frown in my mind.

…

”Mum? Yeah, it’s me. I’m not… No. I’m… I’m not… mum! Okay, but I’m not…“ Quill huffed and looked at the phone with a frown.

“Mum! I’mnotcomingtoworktoday” he rushed out.

“Why?” he winced. “I had a bit of an uh – accident last… Yes I was. I’m sorry but I couldn’t just…“ he sighed. “I know… I _know_. Tony needed… I know,” he frowned at the phone again. “Mum… mum… Mum! No! no, no, no, you don’t need to come over… Yes, I can still be proper sick and not need for you to care for me, I’m not five years old… Yes... I know… I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that… No, I just meant that I got a little bit hurt… The eardrum I think, and a concussion… No, I’m fine, it just needs to heal on its own… No, I don’t need soup,”

He made a face and I let out an accidental giggle. He hurried to put a hand in front of my mouth. My eyes widened in outrage.

“I don’t know, maybe it came from the television,” he looked at me pointedly. “Yes, I know I shouldn’t watch television when I have a concussion. I’ll turn it off.”

He didn’t remove his hand from my mouth, but with a wide, obnoxious smile, he used the tip of his pinkie to press at my nose in the same way one would press a button.

I licked his hand and he quickly removed it, looking at me funnily. I winked at him and went to put the kettle on in the kitchen with a headshake, while he continued bickering with his mother.

_“Why don’t we just stay here?”_

I stopped short in the hallway. “What?”

_“Seriously. We could stay here. No more Cubbins looking at me like he’s wondering how I’ll react to liquid nitrogen. No more Holly trying to polish the jar. No more… storage rooms and salt bags.”_

I slowly walked into the living room and sat on the sofa in front of the half-latent skull.

The television was still on, but only showing static. Snow. I quirked a half-smile at a childhood memory that wasn’t entirely horrible.

“That’s silly, skull. We can’t stay here.”

_“Why the hell not?”_

The face in the plasm; pale now that it was day, turned towards me with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh – because we don’t live here. Quill lives here.”

_“That doesn’t mean that we couldn’t”._

I shook my head. “That’s _exactly_ what it means. We’re just visiting. That doesn’t mean he wants us to move in.”

 _“Well, you didn’t hear what I heard last night,”_ the skull sing-songed.

I stretched my neck a bit to see if Quill was still in the bedroom. “What did you hear?” I asked lowly.

_“Nope, I don’t kiss and tell.”_

With that, the plasm was sucked into the skull and the jar was completely dormant.

I let out a growl of frustration.

“Lucy, are you okay?” Quill called out in a whisper.

“I’m fine,” I yelled back.

“Shhhhh!” he hissed loudly, and I slowly walked back in the bedroom. Where he was standing with his hand over the receiver.

Quill gestured at me to stay put and stay quiet. I put a hand up next to my mouth, mimicking a bullhorn, making him shake his head frantically.

“What? No one. No, mum. No, it was just the television… Yeah, I still haven’t turned it off… I know I should… No. No, mum… No, don’t… that’s unnecessary…”

I bit my lip and slowly stalked over to him. I poked him in the side to see him squirm. He tried to grab me, but I quickly jumped out of his reach. The phone wire only stretched so far.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Can’t I just call you tomorrow with an update? No... No, no, no, no, no. Don’t bring William into this… Can’t we just… Fine… Yeah, I will. Promise… Yeah, bye… Okay, bye… Bye mum… Yeah, I know… Bye… I will... Bye... Yeah, bye... Mum... Mum! Okay! Bye, mum... Bye.”

He put the receiver back on the phone and turned his head towards the ceiling with closed eyes.

“You know, if it didn’t feel like my brain might be spilling out of my nose every time I move, you’d be on the floor right now, screaming because I would be playing piano on your ribs.”

I made a face at the rather gruesome visual.

He looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Tickling, Lucy. I would be tickling you. God, how messed up are we that we automatically go to the most macabre option?”

I felt my cheeks warming a bit. “Sorry.”

“No worries, darling,” he groaned as he stretched.

I nearly choked on my tongue. “Come again?”

“Sorry what? Couldn’t hear properly ‘because I was stretching.”

“Nothing,” I squeaked.

“Sure? I need coffee. And paracetamol.” He rubbed his forehead.

“And some breakfast, maybe?” I suggested.

He smiled sheepishly and walked over, taking both my hands in his. “Thank you for staying.”

“Of course, I did.” I waved him off.

His face went a bit pink. “Yes, well. Thank you for _staying,_ staying. You didn’t _have_ to stay in bed with me.”

“You asked me to,” I shrugged.

He took a step closer, so our feet were almost touching. “I’m sorry about that. I just…” he trailed off, looking straight at me. His thumbs were gently running over my knuckles. With the green in his eyes and the scent coming off him from yesterday’s shower, I was more than ever reminded of that little clearing near where I used to live. Where I came to just be me. Where I could breathe. Where I could tell myself that maybe ghosts weren’t all there was to the world.

For a second or two, I thought he might kiss me again.

Then he sighed and looked at his feet. “We better go get that breakfast.”

I nodded numbly. “Need more sleep too.”

Then the phone rang again, and Quill went to get it with an eyeroll. “Hello? No… What? But it’s not even... Are you shitting me?” he huffed and looked at the phone as if he was contemplating whether the satisfaction of throwing it out of the window would be worth the cost of buying a new phone. “… Fine, but not until later,” he ground out and slammed the receiver down hard.

“What is it?”

“It was Tony. He wants us to come to Portland Row. Something about a big case.”

I frowned. “Already?”

Quill sighed heavily. “He was rather adamant.”

I scoffed. “Well, first, food and then more rest. Surely it can wait a little.”

Apparently it couldn’t. Lockwood called us at two in the afternoon and demanded we came there immediately. A matter of life or death he said, so we packed up and made our way to Marylebone.

…

“Can you believe it; he had the poor young man on a lead. Like a dog!” Holly told us in outrage.

Quill put his legs on the table. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a kinky thing?” he asked casually and ate a couple of grapes.

_“Dammit. That was my line.”_

Holly blanched and I slapped Quill in the gut, making him wince.

“So, let me get this straight; the client wants this done tonight, or else this boy is going to croak it?” I asked.

Lockwood nodded. “I believe him. The bloke was completely out of it. We’re packing up and leaving in an hour.”

Quill scoffed. _“We?_ Didn’t you just say that this ghost specifically targets young men?”

Lockwood huffed. “Yes, but –“

“Then we obviously aren’t _all_ going.”

“Of course, we’re all going!”

“Don’t be stupid. You’re not going. Unless you don’t trust the girls can handle themselves of course,” Quill goaded.

“ _Oooh.”_

Holly and I looked expectantly at Lockwood whose face turned redder by the second.

“It’s not that I don’t– I just – It’s – I think that it’s a lot of ground for them to cover by themselves!” he spluttered.

Quill shrugged. “Then get help.”

“Ah yes, because people are lined up on the doorstep wanting to collaborate with us,” Lockwood snarked.

“Have you asked Florence? I could ask Kate if she has time. I think she has the night off,” Quill suggested.

George shrugged. “I could track down Flo.”

Lockwood looked like he was about to strangle someone. “Okay, if you don’t want to go, that’s up to you, but _I’m_ going.”

_“Wouldn’t it just be easier if he just jumped off a bridge if he wants to die so badly?”_

I scowled at the skull.

Quill rolled his eyes. “Of course, you aren’t. Besides, you’ve got other plans.”

Lockwood looked at him with a nose wrinkle. “I do?”

“Yup. You and I are going to have dinner with my parents tonight. You’re welcome too if you’d like, Cubbins.” Quill smirked and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I would rather eat my own socks,” George snorted.

Lockwood swept Quill’s feet off the table. “I don’t recall making such plans,” he said through gritted teeth and looked accusingly at Holly who gave him a deadpan look in return.

“I just book the clients, Lockwood. I’m _not_ your personal assistant.”

“Well, you’ve been known to conspire,” he grumbled. He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his neck. Then he gave Quill an odd look.

“Can I talk to you outside?”

Quill shrugged. “Of course.”

Together, they walked out of the kitchen door.

_“If you throw me out there past the iron line in the door, I could eavesdrop for you if you’d like. You risk turning into a giraffe the way you’re craning your neck to spy on them through the window,”_

I scoffed. “I’m not spy –“ I cut myself off to look at Holly who smirked at me and George who pretended not to have heard.

“I hope Quill convinces him,” Holly remarked, and casually stretched backwards.

George sighed heavily. “I just wished he hadn’t hidden it.”

Holly lifted an eyebrow towards him. “Well, did you ever ask him about his past?”

He frowned. “No.”

I snorted. “Do you remember when I first came here and questioned why Jessica’s room was off limits? And you told me to bugger off and mind my own business?”

He sighed again. “That’s not the same –“

“Isn’t it though?”

George rolled his eyes. “I’ve known Lockwood longer than you have, and then you come along and flip everything on its head and skeletons are flying out of the closet, left, right, and centre, doing the Macarena.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Without you it would just be status quo.”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid that without me, they would be getting along much better.”

George huffed a small laugh. “Without you, they wouldn’t even be _speaking_. Trust me.”

I craned my neck just a little more and spotted them, standing in front of each other, both with their arms crossed. Lockwood was looking at his shoes. Then Quill put a hand on Lockwood’s shoulder and Lockwood gave him a sheepish smile.

When they came back in, Quill went directly down to the offices. Probably to call Kate.

“Right,” Lockwood blew out his cheeks and clapped his hands. “Change of plans apparently. George, could you perhaps find Flo? Quill is calling… Kate. That’s going to be interesting, eh?”

I felt my stomach drop.

Kate Godwin and I had been rivals. She was everything I wasn’t. Always perfect, always beautiful. In that aspect, she was actually a bit like Holly, only colder and harder.

Except, the last few times I’d met her, she’d seemed completely different and I had no idea how to handle that.

George left shortly after and after a quick change of clothes, I went downstairs to pack whatever we might need.

Just as I was packing the salt bombs, I heard a throat clearing behind me.

Lockwood stood, staring at me. He shifted his weight from one leg to another.

“So...” he trailed off. “How were things at Quill’s last night?”

I sighed heavily, remembering the last discussion we had down here, surrounding the exact same person.

“It was fine. Uneventful. I had a nightmare at one point with the ghost from last night.”

A small smile crossed his face, and he took a step forward.

“I had a hard time falling asleep, knowing that you weren’t here,” he told me softly.

I didn’t know what to say about that.

“Lockwood, I -"

“No, don’t say anything. I just wanted to tell you that I missed you,”

He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. A small hint of pink dusted his cheeks.

I dropped the bag of salt I was holding scattering quite a lot of it.

“Oh dear,” Lockwood chuckled. “That’s bad luck, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. “Considering how much salt we waste on a daily basis, we ought to have the worst luck in the world.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I always throw salt over my shoulder.”

I giggled. “You actually believe in that superstitious rubbish?”

He grinned. “Well, don’t we specialise in superstition?”

“No. We specialise in the supernatural,”

He chuckled. “Well, superstition is a supernatural tangent,”

“It so isn’t.” I shook my head in exasperation.

Lockwood chuckled and soon broke into a full laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Well, part of the superstition when spilling salt is that you have to throw some over your left shoulder to keep evil spirits at bay.”

He nodded towards the shelf behind me.

 _“Oh, how hilarious. Really, the act of true comedy,”_ the skull deadpanned.

I looked over my shoulder to see it rolling its spectral eyes.

I snorted a small laugh myself. “I’m not sprinkling salt on the skull, don’t be ridiculous.”

Lockwood shrugged. Small clinks rang when he threw the rough salt on the jar.

_“Hey!”_

“Don’t, Lockwood.” I frowned.

Lockwood rolled his eyes. “I honestly think that once this whole thing with Fittes is over and done with, we should take it to the furnaces.”

I shifted a bit to cover the skull. “No.”

He huffed. “I know you’ve… bonded with it or whatever and that it’s supposedly Quill’s new best friend but it’s unnatural. And it’s evil. We have our use for it now, but once it’s all over, we’ll incinerate it.”

I scoffed. “You know, you’re _really_ not giving it any incentive to help.”

“Whatever. I just don’t like having it around. It’s a risk.”

“Since when do you care about risks?” I blurted and he raised an eyebrow at me. “No, that was rude of me. You know what? If you don’t want to have it around, I can just ask Quill if he would like to keep it there.” I shrugged.

“And you?”

“What do you mean, me?”

“Where will you stay?” he asked quietly. He looked at me with a sad smile.

I frowned at him. “Are you threatening to throw me out again?”

His eyes widened. “No! No, God no. I just. I really just want you to stay.”

He put his hand on my arm.

I grinned at him. “Good. Because I can’t afford another deposit for a flat.”

“Good to know. Remind me to cut you pay so you can’t leave,” he chuckled.

I laughed and chucked a bit of salt at him.

Then his lips were on mine.

I made a small sound of surprise, but then my eyes closed. I put my hands on his shoulders to push him away, but he was the one who broke the kiss and when I opened my eyes, he was frowning.

“Wha –“

“Um, Cubbins is back. He couldn’t find Florence and uh – Kate is here,” Quill sighed and looked anywhere but at me and Lockwood. I hadn’t heard him enter.

Lockwood jumped up. “Right! Yes! I’ll better – yeah. See you upstairs.” And with that, he was gone.

“Quill, I –“

He sighed. “It’s okay, Lucy. Don’t worry about it.”

He smiled sadly at me and left too.

I leaned back, sitting in the salt leaning against the wall, almost crying even if I didn’t quite know why.

_“Well, it’s official –“_

“Don’t say it.” I cut off the skull.

_“You’d really let me go live with Quill?”_

I sighed and chuckled a bit. “I don’t know. The incineration-bit is still an option, but if anyone is going to incinerate you, it’s going to be me,” I told it, trying, and failing at a menacing tone.

I wiped away a tear that had managed to escape and sniffled a bit, trying to pull myself together.

If I was going to be face to face with Kate Godwin, I wasn’t going in with red eyes and a swollen face. I might not have lots in the looks department, but I ought to at least protect what little I had.

I got up and dusted myself off, checking myself in one of the large mirrors Lockwood had hung in the rapier room.

There were dark circles around my eyes, but no redness and my hair wasn’t looking too bad for once. I nodded in satisfaction and went towards the stairs.

_“Hey!”_

I winced and backtracked. “Sorry.”

I took the jar under my arm but hesitated in going upstairs with it. I didn’t know what Quill had told Kate. I didn’t know how safe I felt with a double agent knowing about the skull or me being able to speak to Type Threes but in the end I supposed it all came down to whether or not I trusted Quill’s judgement.

Slowly, I went upstairs.

When I came up, Kate was seated at the table, daintily drinking a cup of tea. I almost didn’t recognise her with the long, light brown hair with the gentle curls. God, she looked amazing. The others were gathered around her in a way that reminded me of when Holly had first been hired. Except for George. He had changed and was sitting at the end of the table, wearing his ugliest, dirtiest sweat-suit with his eyes fixed on her in some sort of one-sided staring contest.

“Lucy!” Kate’s eyes lit up when she saw me, and she stood to greet me with a one-armed hug and air-kisses on either side of my face. I was completely caught off guard and could only imagine what my face might have looked like.

Quill was completely pink in the face from trying to keep his laughter inside.

I gave him a pointed look and lifted the jar a little.

His eyebrows went high on his forehead and he raised his hands a bit in the universal ‘that’s none of my business’- gesture.

Kate sat back down, and I sat down in front of her. I set the jar heavily down on the table. She jerked back a little. Lockwood’s eyes widened when he realised what I was doing.

“Well, that’s… interesting.” Kate said when I remained silent.

I leaned forward a bit. “This is a Type Three spirit.”

Her eyes widened and went from the jar, to me and back again. “That’s… unlikely.”

“I can talk with it.”

She chuckled insecurely as if she was uncertain if this was a badly played off joke. She looked around at the others in the room, who all looked serious. When she reached Quill, he nodded.

“Skull, is Lucy telling the truth? One blink for yes, two for no, please.”

_“Wouldn’t it be fun if I didn’t do it and she just thought you were all nutters?”_

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “And Quill does that. Just do it, skull. Please? My patience is running a bit thin at the moment.”

The skull made a single clear blink in the green plasm.

Kate gave a small jump in surprise. She put her fingers on the jar but quickly withdrew them when the skull appeared to be licking them.

“Well, that’s… remarkable. I suppose there really never _was_ any competition between us.” She gave me a weak smile.

I gave her a warm one in return. “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re the only one that really gave me a run for my money.”

Her smile widened, revealing perfectly straight white teeth and a delicate dust of rosy pink showed up on her cheeks.

How the hell anyone would ever believe me capable of stealing her boyfriend was beyond me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So - what would you like next? Dinner with Quill's parents or ghost-busting with the girls?
> 
> Leave me a comment and let me know!


	46. Jessica Lockwood

_Quill:_

We walked to the tube station in a tense, awkward silence. We both found the cracks in the pavements immensely interesting and I was certain we could both write extensive reports about lengths, depths, and grass growth by the time we reached the underground.

When we got on the train, it was even worse. My headache didn’t make things better.

We kept looking at each other and saying nothing until Tony apparently had enough.

“About Lucy, I uh...” he trailed off.

I sighed heavily. “Don’t worry about it, Tony. It’s fine.”

It really, really wasn’t fine, but what could I do?

“No, but -"

I rubbed my forehead. “It’s okay, so drop it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s just that I think that maybe -"

“Stop it,” I bit out. “I have duct tape in my bag and I’m not afraid to use it.”

He pressed his lips into a thin line.

“Your parents. They know that I’m coming then?” he wisely changed the subject.

I nodded slowly. “I called my mum after I called Kate. She’s been asking about it since the Joplin case.

He looked a bit stumped. “She has?” he asked in a small voice.

I scoffed. “Of course, she has. My dad as well. Hell, even William has asked about you once or twice.”

He looked at his shoes and didn’t say anything more.

When we arrived, we took almost the same route as I had gone with Lucy but rather than going through the bushes and over the fence, we followed the path the long way around.

All the way, we walked at a snail’s pace. The usual jaunt was missing from Tony’s step and he was dragging his feet. It reminded me of taking a dog to the vet.

I had realised, however that Tony would never come by himself, even if I had the suspicion that he wanted to. It was up to me to facilitate this.

I walked through the wrought-iron gate when we reached it but stopped halfway up the pathway when I realised I was alone.

I backtracked a bit and saw that Tony had stalled on the pavement behind the hedge, just out of sight of the windows. He looked at the ground with wide eyes.

“I can’t do this.”

I scoffed. “Of course, you can. Come on.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t been here since…" He took a deep breath through the nose and pressed his lips together in a hard line.

“I know.”

“I haven’t even _seen_ them since…” He ran both hands through his hair and rubbed his face hard.

“I know.” I put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

He looked at me imploringly. “If you know, then how can you make me do this?”

I rolled my eyes. “Because they need it. And because even though you will probably fight me over it and won’t ever admit it, you need it too.”

He paced back and forth a bit, mumbling “I can’t do this, I can’t do this” to himself over and over.

I sighed heavily and stopped him with a hand on his arm. “If I can accept and even support what I saw this afternoon, then you can do this,” I resorted to blackmail.

Tony huffed. “That’s not – Just listen to me!” he said imploringly. “I didn’t -"

“Let’s go,” I cut him off and pulled him through the gate by the arm.

He had been almost lethargic as we walked through the woods, but now he quivered with nervous energy.

I rang the bell.

“I think the girls might need our help; I’ll just go –“ he turned around.

I grabbed him hard by the arm and shoved him in front of the door.

“Anthony?” My mum said softly as the door opened.

“Hi, Aunt Emily,” he said in a small voice.

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but Tony had grown to be almost a head taller than her. That much was obvious when she wrapped her arms around him.

He froze for several seconds, but I knew my mum well. She could be a Pitbull with hugs. She wouldn’t let go until he hugged her back, no matter how awkward it could get. Many of our arguments had ended in that way through my teen years. Me being angry and her determination to simply hug it out of me. It was only a handful of times it hadn’t worked.

Ever so slowly and hesitantly, he put his arms around her and hugged her back. I went past them and into the hall. I looked back over my shoulder to see Tony wrapped around my mum with tears streaming down his face, I soundlessly slipped further into the house, in search of my dad who I predictably found in the kitchen.

“Quinoa!” was his way of greeting me.

“I’m quite sure it says Quill on my birth certificate. Is that what you would have called me if I had been a girl?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No, if you had been a girl, your mum wanted to call you Clementine. I mean that we’re having chicken with mushroom, spinach, and quinoa for dinner.” He winked at me.

I tried to remember which places served food after dark.

“So, is he…” my dad trailed off.

I nodded. “He’s with mum. They’re hugging it out in front of all the neighbours.”

“To hell with the neighbours. But is he alright?”

“Alright is a relative term. I think he will be in time. He has good people around him.” I sighed and rubbed my face.

My dad frowned. “Are _you_ alright?”

“I’m fine,” I responded automatically and jumped up to sit on the counter.

“That there is not a ‘fine’ face,” he pressed.

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll have you know that this is a _perfect_ face.” I gestured at my own visage.

He shook his head. “Well, you look like me, so I can’t argue with that. But I can tell something’s bothering you. I’m ready when you need to talk.”

“I have a concussion if that’s what you mean. I can see four of you right now,” I joked poorly.

He looked at me over his glasses and I almost broke and told him everything then and there. But this evening wasn’t about my woes.

A light knock sounded on the doorframe. Tony came in hesitantly. He looked smaller than I had seen him for quite some time, as if he were expecting an attack at any time. His eyes were red, and his hair stood up in odd places. His hands were in his pockets and his shoulders up near his ears.

“Hello, Uncle Charlie,” he said softly, sounding a bit fragile.

My dad’s face lit up. “Well, come in here lad and let me have a look at you.”

Tony took a few steps into the kitchen and my dad went to give him a brief, but tight hug. He kept his hand on his shoulder though.

“My god, you’ve grown. You’re a right beanstalk, aren’t you? Just like your father.”

Tony grinned and a couple more tears spilled out. My dad and I pretended not to see, and he quickly wiped them away.

“I uh – I suppose I am,” he shrugged. He seemed to slowly relax a bit more.

My mum stood, leaning against the doorway, wiping away tears of her own. She gave me a nod and put a hand over her heart.

“Now, head on into the dining room. I’ll bring the food in a moment,” my dad waved us off and went back to the stove.

My mum cringed at the prospect of dinner. It was a testament to her love for my dad that she was willing to eat spinach.

“Where’s William?” I asked as we sat down.

“Oh,” my mum pursed her lips. “He’s out with uh… Nadia?” she looked at my dad with a nose wrinkle.

I raised an eyebrow. “Nadia? I thought his girlfriend’s name was Sandra.”

“Well,” my dad said tightly as he came in with the food. “They broke up a couple of weeks ago. And he’s not out with Nadia. They were on a date last week; this one is called Tina.”

My mum rolled her eyes.

“Someone’s busy,” I remarked with an exasperated headshake.

“Unlike others,” my mother shot back, looking at me pointedly.

I sighed and rubbed my face. This was the last thing I needed.

Tony cleared his throat. “Well, actually –“

“Don’t you start now.” I bit out.

My mum and dad looked at each other and had an entire wordless conversation.

“Tell us something about your business, Anthony. Quill tells us bits and pieces, but you know, he can be a bit superficial.” My dad broke in. I couldn’t decide on whether to feel grateful for the subject change or annoyed with the insult.

Tony smiled widely. “Well, I was licenced a few years back and started up, first with George who is my researcher. I’ve had a number of different assistants since then, until uh – until Lucy started. That’s a couple of years ago now too,” he looked at me carefully and I was determined to give nothing away.

“Then as we got more and more successful, I had to hire Holly, who at first was a secretary but is now working as a field agent as well. And then of course, Quill has been an invaluable help,”

I raised an eyebrow at him, feeling that he might be laying it on a bit thick.

“Someone has to keep you from getting yourself killed,” I remarked with a sardonic smile.

My mum made a small gasp. “Is that a frequent hazard?”

I made a sigh. “Mum, you know that while there’s a small risk with everything, taking the proper precautions, and following the right procedures makes agent work much safer. Isn’t that right, Tony?” I looked at him pointedly.

My mum scoffed. “is that why half your face is burned?”

I grimaced and Tony shrank an inch in his seat.

“That would be my fault,” he mumbled.

I snorted. “You throw just as bad as Cubbins.”

Tony scoffed. “That is _not_ true. There was a wind!” he argued.

“Yeah? Was it coming out of your ar –“

“Quill!” My mum cut me off. “We’re about to eat.” She looked at me pointedly as if to tell me that the food was bad enough as it was.

“Yes! Please, boys. Dig in!” My dad offered us excitedly.

Tony looked sceptically at the grainy dish before loading a few spoonsful on his plate.

He took a bite, and I enjoyed the way he forced it down with a smile out of politeness.

“Tastes lovely, dad,” I remarked after eating a bit. And I really thought so.

My mum scowled at me, obviously not wanting me to encourage his cooking. She too was the very picture of someone only eating out of love. Not for the food, but for the one who cooked it.

“Now, tell us. What sort of case were you on that led to this?” My dad gestured at the side of my face.

Tony and I shared a look.

_Oh, we broke into the fake tomb of one of our national heroes._

“It was a Revenant.” I started slowly, trying to get us at least somewhat close to the truth.

“It caught us off guard,” Tony continued.

My dad shook his head. “Nasty business, that is.”

My mum looked out the window, suddenly seeming a bit distant. “Neither of you should be in that industry.”

She sighed and shook her head, trying to rid herself of whatever thoughts were occupying her mind.

“Never mind that. I’m happy you’re doing well. I only want you to be careful.”

She smiled gently at Tony who looked slightly uncomfortable.

“Of course, we are. That’s why we aren’t on tonight’s mission, isn’t that right, Tony?” I looked at him pointedly.

“Oh, uh – yes. It’s a uh – girl’s night I suppose.”

“Well, tell us about it,” my dad prompted.

I looked at Tony, letting him do what he did best.

He grinned, showing off those dimples that everyone liked so much. “Well, it appears to be the spirit of a performance artist from the beginning of the last century. She did a lot of work with illusions. Always in ways where she appears to have died, but then turns up alive in spectacular fashion. She had a rumour of seducing men and it seems like this is her modus operand. She exerts some sort of power over uh – over young... men... particularly ones in some sort of uh – emotional turmoil.” He looked at me sideways and I rolled my eyes.

“Turmoil or not, I still believe it better that we didn’t go, wouldn’t you say?”

He sighed. “Perhaps,” he admitted.

“Too right,” my dad added. “One never knows what sort of turmoil one might be in until one is confronted with it.”

“Indeed,” Tony gave me a rueful smile.

My mum looked at me calculatingly. That was never a good sign. “And do you find yourself in some sort of turmoil?” she asked me with the hint of a smirk.

“No, mother. I find myself perfectly sorted,” I lied.

“Anyhow, Anthony,” my dad cut in, like a true diplomat, “How are your relations with Fittes? Have they made any offers? I saw Dullop and Tweed are merging with them in the newspaper this morning.”

That was news to me. “Really?” I looked at Tony. He nodded slowly.

“Yes. We went over the newspaper before you and uh – before you arrived.”

I nearly slapped him when I saw the eyebrow my mum had raised in my direction.

“Dullop is retiring,” my dad explained. “In a way, it was to be expected anyways. Tweed couldn’t exactly take over, being dead and all and none of them had any children.”

My mum scoffed. “That’s only because a couple of two men can’t legally adopt. That’s one of the reasons they mostly took in orphans as agents. I know at least four women John Dullop has walked down the aisle. Worst kept secret in the city.”

I gave a wry smile. “It’s a shame. They did good like that.”

There was a small lull in the conversation.

Tony cleared his throat “Yes, Fittes did make an offer, but I didn’t take it –“

“Good.” My mum cut in before Tony managed to finish his sentence. “I mean, it’s good of you to keep your independence.”

Tony nodded with a large smile. “I do feel like a lot of our success is owed to our independence.”

Slowly we finished eating and my mum brought out a tart of some sort of which Tony and I each took a slice of and went down in the basement with.

“Julius Winkman is out,” Tony told me as soon as we had reached the bottom of the steps.

I felt my stomach drop. “Does Lucy know?”

He winced. “I didn’t really have time to tell her before they left.”

I snorted. He had plenty of time, he just chose to use it on something else.

“I mean, I wanted to, but –“

“Shut up, Tony. I have something for you,” I cut him off and went into my bedroom.

I fingered the knob on the bedside table a bit before opening the drawer. That drawer had been opened many times over the last almost eight years, but I hadn’t put my hand in it at all in all that time. I knew the contents well though. Two sweet wrappers, a scrunchie with a hairpin on it and a charm bracelet.

With a sigh, I put the wrappers in my pocket to throw out later and picked up the two latter items.

I came back in the sitting room where Tony was eating his tart.

“I uh – Jess forgot these the last time she was here. I figured you ought to have them,”

I carefully put the scrunchie and the bracelet in his hand.

His mouth opened a bit and his eyes widened. He put his tart down on the table to touch the small charms.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve looked for this?” he breathed “And all this time, you had it? Wait, why _do_ you have it?” He frowned.

I scratched the back on my head. “Well, sometimes, when she went to sleep, she would get annoyed with it, because it kept snagging on her hair or digging into her wrist, so she would take it off.” I shrugged.

I could see his mind working. “So why is it _here_?” he demanded.

I sighed heavily but didn’t say it. I didn’t feel I needed to.

 _“Unbelievable!”_ He made a growl of frustration and ran a hand through his hair.

He paced back and forth with the scrunchie and the bracelet dangling from his hand. “You! And – and Jessica?”

I sat down on the sofa with a sigh. “Do you really mean to tell me that you didn’t know? Or at least suspected?”

“Of course, I did,” he scoffed. “But that doesn’t mean I like the confirmation!” he barked.

He deflated a bit and plopped down in the armchair.

“Did you love her?” He asked in a small voice.

“Very much. And I miss her every day. She was my best friend,” I told him quietly.

“Then what about Lucy?” he questioned.

I took a deep breath. “Lucy is different. But that doesn’t matter now. Not anymore.” I gave him a rueful smile.

He rubbed his face. “Of course, it matters! How can you say it doesn’t matter?”

“Because all I want is for Lucy to be happy. If I’m not the one who does that for her, then that’s just how it is.” I rubbed a bit at the scrapes on my hands. One of them had gotten infected.

Tony sighed heavily. “Do you still love Jessica?”

“In a way. I probably always will, but I’m not _in_ love, if that makes sense.” I shrugged.

He nodded slowly. “I need to think about this.” He let out another frustrated sound. “I can’t believe you – my _sister!_ ” he half-yelled.

I chuckled. “Well, if you must know, _she_ was the one to –“

“No. No, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know _anything_ about this. In fact, just erase my memory and tell me you found the bracelet on the street.” He rubbed his face.

I grinned. “I have no regrets. I would offer you to punch me in the face, but you did throw a flare at my head yesterday.”

“God, I hate you right now. I should have stabbed your arse harder when I had the chance.”

I laughed, but it was broken by a hiss when a sharp pain shot through my skull.

“Are you okay?” Tony asked worriedly.

I scoffed. “I have a concussion. Define ‘okay’.”

“Right,” he winced. “Maybe we should get back to see if the girls finished with the case?”

“Yeah, but let’s take a night cab,” I groaned. “I don’t have patience to walk to the station.”

We finished out tart in silence before heading back up the stairs.

“Are you two alright?” My dad asked when we returned to the kitchen. “We heard shouting.”

“Professional differences,” Tony explained with his most charming grin, coming up beside me. “The two of us have rather different approaches to agent work and I suppose I can get a bit defensive about it at times.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged.

“Ah, yes.” My dad looked at my mum. “Passion can bring out the best and the worst in us.”

He sighed as he looked at my mum who was skimming some paperwork with a frown.

“You two be careful, you hear?” he added.

We both nodded.

“And we’ll see you both on Sunday,” my mum butted in and left her paperwork. It clearly wasn’t a request.

“Of course,” I replied for us both.

She put her arms around Tony.

“We’ve missed you _so much_ , Anthony,” she whispered wetly.

“I’ve missed you too,” he admitted with a small sniffle.

The night cab arrived, and we sat in the back, staring out of each our window. Slowly, we approached Marylebone.

“Thank you,” Tony said, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it.

“You’re welcome.” I smiled at my own reflection.

My heart was in a thousand pieces, but my family was slowly mending. Some day everything would be alright, I told myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love these guys. I can't help it. And I will remain completely unapologetic about it.
> 
> The next chapter is in progress. It'll probably be up soon-ish as well.
> 
> What did you think of the little revelation? I had hinted at it previously, but as Lockwood says; confirmation is something else.
> 
> Leave a comment and let me know what you think


	47. Heartbreaker

“So, are we about ready?” Holly asked the room.

I nodded and Kate made a small sound of agreement.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come? I know those two are as stable as a chair with one leg, but you know you can count on me.” George offered sincerely.

Holly and Kate both turned to me.

“You know, George, I think it’s best if you sit this one out. But maybe you could stay close to the phone in case of emergency?” I suggested.

He nodded and went back to his research. “Uh, I might just pop out for a second. I need the library” he decided three seconds later.

“You’ll need to hurry if you’re going to make it,” Kate pointed out. “They close in an hour.”

“Not where I’m going,” he mumbled distractedly and threw notebooks and biscuits in a satchel.

I sighed and shook my head. Who knew where the hell George went anyways?

By silent agreement, we picked up our bags and slowly made our way out with him.

Once outside, George went in the other direction and the three of us headed towards the tube station.

Kate’s boots had the sort of heels that made an annoying ‘ _clack’_ -sound with every step she took, and it was slowly, but surely driving me crazy.

_“Would you look at those legs? Those are some beautiful legs. Do you think she does ballet in her free time? She looks like the type who does ballet. You know, willowy, elegant, poised. Unlike you.”_

“Shut up,” I snapped.

Kate looked at me with wide eyes.

“It’s fine,” Holly assured her. “You get used to it.”

 _“I wish I still had a nose. Could you get a bit closer and tell me what she smells like? I bet she smells like apples. Or caramel. She doesn’t seem like the classic rose-water girl. I bet she –“_ I reached back and shut the lever on the jar with a satisfying ‘ _click’._

The train was close to full. It was one of the last ones where people kept their heads down and looked at their watches, conscient that they were cutting it close in getting home before the dead took over the city. People with grocery bags and briefcases were hurrying home to close the shutters and turn on the television for the latest comedy, hoping to forget the horrors outside.

It was odd seeing Kate casually sitting in her seat. Somehow it seemed like too common a setting for her, with the plastic benches someone had been tagging with black marker and the discarded pieces of food wrappings and Styrofoam cups.

Either way, it was plain odd just to see her like this. She had a button-up denim jacket that wasn’t too fancy. She wore simple black leggings and a grey skirt. The light brown wig made her look softer somehow and combined with the easy smile on her face, she might have been a completely different person.

“Brown hair suits you,” I remarked, thoughtlessly.

Her smile widened and showed off her neat pearly white teeth that I had barely known she’d had until recently.

Holly sent me a wide encouraging smile as well from behind Kate’s back, but I had no idea what that was about.

“Thank you so much! I was rather sceptical about it, but I’m starting to like it too,” she beamed.

I nodded. “It looks good.”

Holly took over, complimenting her on her skirt and the two continued taking turns to praise each other’s fashion sense. It was a strange thing to observe. The two of them barely knew each other, but they were obviously incredibly supportive of one another. Either that or they had entered some sort of unspoken competition of out-complimenting each other.

By the time we reached our destination, Kate was closely examining and praising the tips of Holly’s hair which apparently weren’t at all dry. I raised an eyebrow at them and wordlessly we got out.

It was a five-minute walk from the station to the fairground where the theatre stood, tall and would have been an impressive building if not for the algae covered and cracked walls. A few tiles were missing from the roof and swallows had built their nests near the large columns, causing them and the floor to be covered in waste. Around the theatre, wonky tents in faded fabric had been erected, where people would throw away their money in hopes of winning a polyester stuffed animal in various neon colours. It was the end of a hot day and people were deflatedly leaving the place with leftover candyfloss and empty pockets.

“God, this is depressing.” Kate remarked with a nose-wrinkle. “Seriously, this is the place where childhood dreams go to die.”

Heat was radiating from the ground and the smell of dust and drying grass was in the air. An iron fence like the ones they use on construction sites, was surrounding the lot, except for a small booth where a young red-headed girl was counting money from that day’s ticket sale.

“Excuse me,” Holly said carefully, not to startle the girl as we went closer.

She stopped counting money and gave us an insincere smile. “We’re closed. Can’t sell you any tickets.” Then she returned to counting money.

“No, but we do need to get in. Is Lew Tufnell around somewhere?”

The girl gave us a look. “He’s in there. Onstage. But you won’t wanna go in. Soon _she_ will come out. You’ll want to be far away from here,”

“Have you seen her then?” Holly asked.

The girl looked around to see if anyone was looking. Then she leaned backwards into the booth as if she was hiding.

“Well, the other night, I –“

“There you are!”

A rotund man was coming towards us. His face was bright red and his nose almost purple in that way that shows close company with wine. His clothes were in outrageous, clashing colours and I wondered if he might stand in as a clown sometimes.

“Tracey, what are you doing? Let them through! Liven up, will you,” he barked, making the girl flinch. My jaw clenched a bit.

Then he turned towards us. “I’ve been expecting you. The beautiful miss Holly. And I see you’ve brought your girlfriends,”

Holly frowned minutely as he stood, looking us up and down like he was examining meat at the supermarket. I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

Kate, however stood proud with her hands on her hips and stared him down. She was in full Fittes-mode, I realised. Authoritative, superior, and stone-faced.

“I believe we have a case to get started on?” she prompted coolly.

The man faltered a bit, and I couldn’t help the small smile that stretched on my face. Kate winked at me when he turned his back.

“Right, yes. Terrible business, terrible business.” He mumbled. “Young Charley Budd is in a right state. I had to lock him in my caravan. The way he’s moaning and whining. You’re his only hope, I’m afraid.”

Kate raised an eyebrow at him. She had been briefed about the case as well, but neither of us had been quite prepared for this client.

“He started screaming this afternoon. Disrupted Coco the Clown’s toddler party in the main tent. Had to give away refunds,” he lamented with a headshake.

Holly sent me a look as if to say; _‘Can you believe this guy?’_

He led us up the stairs and past the bird-poop covered columns. I knew it wasn’t the season for swallows, but I couldn’t help but glance upwards at the nests in slight paranoia.

We came through the double doors and into a brightly lit foyer. The marble floor was covered by a carpet that was grey on the edges but brown in the middle. It smelled dusty, like an old attic. Heaven knows we’ve spent enough time in those to know the smell.

The walls had once been painted white and posters were hung in large frames with peeling gold paint. In a corridor off to the side, a girl was hurrying around with a hoover so fast that it didn’t stay long enough in one place to actually suck up any dirt.

Another girl was packing away sweets in plastic boxes, in a small booth with practiced swiftness. There was a certain underlying nervous energy to her movements which showed clearly when she dropped one of the boxes with a curse.

“Erin! Careful!” Tufnell shouted.

The girl ducked her head and hurried to put the boxes in the cabinet and locking it. She almost ran out of the theatre when she finished.

“I apologise. We’re a bit understaffed at the moment, what, with Sid and Charley out of the picture. We have the girls of course, but they just aren’t…” He trailed off with a straining sound and a pinched face, as if he was about to shit his pants. “You know what I mean.”

Holly bristled, but Kate put a hand on her arm. “Mr Turfbell,”

“Tufnell,” the man corrected her with a frown.

Kate’s smile was perfectly polite, but cold as ice. “Of course. My apologies, but we’re getting closer to nightfall and we’re _terribly_ worried about you and your staff. Perhaps you could show us where the ghost was seen?”

“Yes, of course, of course. Right this way.”

He dabbed his hair with a large handkerchief and led us through another set of wooden doors, covered with dark red velvet.

As we came through the door, my breath caught in my throat. My experience with high culture was limited to say the least. My only experience with theatre was a school play when I was seven and that had been performed at the local church, which, sorry to say, wasn’t exactly awe-inspiring.

This was something else though. The auditorium was much larger than I’d expected. A gigantic chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling, casting a bright light over the entire room. Supported by several other lamps around on the walls and the ceiling, the light was reflected by filigree painted in gold in almost every corner imaginable.

Rows and rows of dark red velvet chairs faced the stage in front of us and when I looked up, I realised there were two curved balconies with even more chairs.

I had no issue with heights, but I couldn’t keep my mouth from going a bit dry when I noticed how high up the second balcony was. I couldn’t even make out the details of the filigree. What I could make out were two large projectors pointed at the stage and ropes attached to the balcony that seemed a bit out of place.

On the stage, two people were sweeping and tidying up from the last performance. The same nervous energy ran through them as the ones in the front. They were hurrying to finish their tasks as fast as possible, so they could get the hell out of there.

The acoustics in the circular room were incredible. I could hear them whispering about us all the way from the door.

The floor was tilted so when we were walking down the aisles between the chairs, we were walking downhill. Once at the bottom, we climbed a steep, narrow staircase on the side of the stage to get on it.

“Careful, the floor is tilted,” Tufnell warned us. I was about to tell him that it had been tilted all along, when I realised that this tilt was in the other direction. I felt like I might be getting seasick. It was like a helter-skelter.

The two youths stopped sweeping when Tufnell managed to drag himself up onstage.

“Off – off you go. Hurry up,” he ordered between deep breaths.

It was hot up there. The projectors and the lights that came from a beam above, increased the temperature onstage with at least a couple of degrees. It was worth keeping in mind when we took readings.

“This is it,” Tufnell spread his arms out dramatically. “This is the very spot where La Belle Dame met her terrible end.”

“And what’s all this for then?” Holly gestured at some things off to the side.

“The crash mat is for the trapeze act and the boxes there contains items for the magic show. Lots of little secrets hidden there. Our stage manager designed them. You’ll of course want to see where poor Sid died? It’s stage left, in the wings.

We dropped our bags on the stage and Holly and Kate went with Tufnell. I stayed on stage to get a feel for the place.

It was a strange feeling standing there alone in the silence. I don’t know why but I felt like doing something silly, like a cartwheel or even sing a song. I shook my head at the notion. Now, standing on the stage, I was almost completely blinded by the lights. I couldn’t see the second balcony at all. I could barely make out the first one. Dust was flying around in the air from the recent sweeping, looking like tiny bits of snowflakes. I blew a bit out in the air to see them swirl around.

I felt tempted to take off my jacket in the heat but if the ghost we were dealing with was as dangerous as we expected, it wouldn’t do to leave my arms exposed. Any sudden bursts of plasm and I might be dead.

I knelt down to touch the rough painted floorboards and opened my senses.

There was a strange tension in the air. Rustling of clothes and footsteps of many people, walking slowly to find their seats. A low murmur as people excused themselves when walking in front of others and made themselves comfortable and ready to be entertained.

I looked up and squinted through the sharp lights. Was that a person down there in the seats?

I slowly rose, but the noise didn’t stop when I stopped touching the floor. I could hear Tufnell telling the others of Sid’s death in the wings.

I turned slightly towards them and as I did, a chill moved along my spine. I could feel someone watching me. I looked out across the auditorium again, but no one was there.

I pulled my rapier as I scanned the seats. The murmur from the audience so long ago rose to a crescendo of applause. It came from all around me, flooding me with noise so loud I almost couldn’t think.

Then it was silent. Now, the only thing I heard was my own breathing and rapid heartbeat.

I tried to focus but the sudden lack of sound had made me feel a bit disoriented. I blinked and shook my head before looking up.

Out of nothing, a large object had appeared. It was directly in front of me in the centre aisle.

It was a casket. Around it, the darkness had densified to a point where it looked like solid mass. Humps and spikes covered it entirely – the hilts and points of swords, that had been embedded in the box.

Slowly something came from the casket. A line that turned into drops of black, dripping with dull little splashes on the carpet. Another line followed it and then one more. The dripping turned into running and on the floor a puddle started amassing. It grew, and it too started flowing down the aisle it separated to flow between the chairs, but the general direction remained the same.

I stood on the edge of the stage, frozen, unable to tear my eyes away from the blood running down towards me.

Ghost-lock was not a new phenomenon to me. We all felt it from time to time, but with a bit of experience it could be overcome. The trick was to separate yourself from the reality you stepped into. The ghost’s reality that is. You forcefully shut down your senses and removed yourself. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than dying stupidly just standing there, staring.

I ripped myself out of the ghost-lock with a sharp intake of breath, as if I had been underwater for too long.

“She’s here!” I yelled to the others. “She’s here!”

Swinging my rapier, I leaped from the stage and down on one of the chairs. I could hear the springs complaining as I landed but there was no way I was touching that floor.

I climbed the chair and ran from backrest to backrest towards the casket. Cold emanated from it and as I got closer, the vision blurred, and the darkness billowed.

A woman’s form moved towards me and with a cry, I took a final leap.

“Are you quite mad?” A very real girl sneered at me.

I dropped the rapier and changed direction with a contortion and landed awkwardly on the floor.

I turned around, and everything was clear again. The temperature was back to normal too.

The others were running up the aisle, with Tufnell on their heels.

“Lucy,” Holly looked at me wide-eyed. “What happened?”

“She was here. The casket was here. Did none of you see the blood?”

Both Kate and Holly looked perplexed.

“We only saw you on the chairs,” Kate said, looking around for clues.

Another girl came through the door, holding a few boxes. It was Tracey who we’d met at the entrance.

“Did any of you see anything odd here?” I asked them.

Tracey shook her head.

“Just you” the other girl bit out. She was quite tall, blonde, and evidently not quite satisfied with almost getting skewered.

“Well, it was here.” I argued. “I saw it, I reacted, that’s what I do. I’m sorry you were in the way,” I shrugged.

“No one is doubting you, Lucy,” Holly said before turning to the two girls. “You’re Tracey, right?” The red-headed girl nodded. “And you are?” she asked the blonde.

She looked at Holly as if she were something the cat had dragged in, which had to be a first. People looked at me like that all the time, but generally speaking, Holly was never met with a single nose-wrinkle.

“This – young lady –“ Tufnell wheezed. He had finally reached the rest of us after waddling down the aisle. “Who your friend nearly decapitated,” he coughed, “Is Sarah Parkins – she was the one to save poor Charley Budd the other day,”

The girl in question pursed her lips. “I came to tell you, Mr Tufnell, that Charley started howling again. We need you to come and try to soothe him. He’s upsetting everyone.”

Tufnell wiped the sweat off his face with the handkerchief he had produced from his back pocket.

“Yes, yes, of course, I’m coming. Tracey, you stupid girl. What are you doing in here? Don’t you have chores to do outside?” he shouted.

Tracey shrank. “Yes, but I was frightened, I asked Sarah if I could come inside –“

“Against my express permission!” he thundered, getting even more red in the face. “You’ll feel the back of my hand if you don’t get back to work.”

Tracey swallowed hard but Holly cleared her throat. “Actually, Mr Tufnell, we would like to speak to both girls. They’re direct witnesses to the haunting,”

He huffed, “I’ve told you everything relevant.”

“With all due respect,” she said smoothly, “while your instructions have been excellent, it really could make all the difference, getting a first-hand account of the events.”

She smiled gently at the red-haired girl. “Tracey, you saw it most clearly, didn’t you? On the stage and in the wings. You saw it with Sid Morrison.”

Tracey nodded timidly, looking over at Mr Tufnell.

“I understand that the Spectre is supposed to be quite beautiful?” Holly prompted.

“Not to me,” she said in a small voice and looked away. “But I think she was to Sid. She was wrapped in a golden light, up there at the stage,”

Holly hummed. “Maybe the stage is the Source. That’s where she died after all.”

Sarah Parkins shook her head. “Can’t be. It’s not the original stage. The floorboards were torn out and burned. So was the sultan’s casket. You can read about it in books on the history of the theatre.”

Tufnell gave her a fond smile in sharp contrast to the way he had scowled at Tracey. “She’s a clever girl, our Sarah here. Committed to Tufnell’s. Despite the death of poor Sid who she was most fond of in particular. I’m much obliged to her for carrying on in such tragic circumstances but we best get going now,” he simpered.

They turned to leave but Sarah Parkins stopped. “It’s not the stage you should be looking at. I saw the ghost in the dressing-room corridor, Girls saw it on the balcony, in the basement. You say you saw it here,” she looked at me. “Be careful. You never know where it might show up next,” she warned.

With that, they left.

“Well, that was cheerful, wasn’t it?” Kate threw herself down on one of the chairs.

Holly looked around. “I hate to say it, but maybe Lockwood was right. We do have a lot of ground to cover.”

I sighed and shook my head. “It would have been too dangerous for them.”

“So, do we split up?” Kate suggested.

I bit my lip. “Perhaps, you two could go together. I have the skull with me.”

Holly shook her head. “We ought to split in threes. Or else we won’t be done for days, and you heard about Charley Budd. Apparently he doesn’t have long. Is that alright with you, Kate?”

Kate shrugged with a rueful smile. “It’s fine. I work alone more often than not these days,”

We set out immediately, armed with our rapiers and several salt bombs.

We agreed that I would go through the front of house, meaning the foyer, the stairs and two other public spaces, and a small exhibition of antique mechanical toys in display cases that moved if you put money in a slot.

Then there was the auditorium itself with the seats on the ground floor and both balconies which Kate was put in charge of. The last part, which Holly volunteered for, was the stage and the backstage region with the dressing-rooms, props and scenery and the creepy basement used for storage.

We measured temperatures and took note of miasma, sense of unease and fleeting chills.

Signs of supernatural activity was spread all across the building. A small drop in temperature here, a hint of creeping fear there. It was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

The most significant sign was when Kate measured a four-degree temperature drop on the middle of the stage, exactly where I had been standing.

When we finished our readings, we met for a briefing.

We laid out an iron circle in the foyer and got comfortable for a tea-break.

“So,” I shifted a bit awkwardly. “Sorry for stealing your boyfriend I suppose.” I shrugged, not really knowing what else to say for small-talk.

Kate laughed delightedly. A sound that felt so foreign, coming from her. “Don’t worry about it. He was useless anyway. Can’t recommend having a boyfriend who’s in love with someone else.” She winked.

“Right,” I laughed awkwardly, reminding myself that it was just a ploy to give Kate a cover.

“Will you join us for breakfast in the morning?” Holly asked Kate. “Usually, we gather for breakfast after a spectacular case. I have a feeling this one is going to be spectacular.” She looked around the room at all the posters hanging on the wall.

Kate tilted her head. “I might. Depending on how the case ends.”

Holly opened a small plastic box with carrot sticks and I offered Kate a chocolate biscuit when I saw her disturbed facial expression.

“Ooh, don’t mind if I do.” She took one and moaned when she bit into it.

I grinned. I sort of found myself thinking that maybe this version of Kate Godwin wasn’t entirely horrible.

“We should get moving,” Holly prompted as she closed the lid on her carrots.

She and Kate moved out and I hung back a bit to take the jar out of my rucksack. I opened the lever.

The skull looked at me expectantly.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, she smells like raspberries. Are you happy now?”

_“Did you ask if she does ballet?”_

I scoffed. “No, I didn’t ask her. How do you even work that into a conversation?”

The skull pouted.

“I'll see what I can do. Now, can you please help me with this lady?” I requested and got up with my rucksack on my back.”

_“Fine. We can talk about my freedom as we go along.”_

I sighed. “Not when we’re on a case.”

The ghost huffed. _“But as soon as we get home, you’ll close the lever. Some friend you are. I don’t see you taping the mouth shut on Holly or Cubbins or Lockwood... Especially no tape on Lockwood’s mouth. You’re using that for something else,”_ it taunted.

I rubbed my face. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

_“Oh, and then there’s poor Quill, just waiting for you to even look at him. Bless his poor hea-"_

“Shut it,” I sneered.

_“I did tell you I admire you for playing both boys at once. Bit like this lady, wouldn’t you say?”_

“I am _nothing_ like her,” I bit out.

 _“Are you sure? You’re certainly breaking some hearts these days.”_ I could hear the smirk in its voice.

I sighed. “What do I do, skull?”

_“Kill ‘em both.”_

“Do you have any sort of solution that doesn’t involve homicide?”

 _“Maybe just stick to one? Kill the other. No actually, he would just kill himself anyways. Save you the trouble,”_ the skull remarked gleefully.

I gritted my teeth. “Neither of them would do that.”

_“Not on purpose of course.”_

“I just won’t be with any one of them. Problem solved.” I shrugged.

_“Are you sure you can do that? Like, are you really sure you can keep your hands to yourself if carrot top is standing there within reach, looking at you just so? Or is it Lockwood’s stupid face that’s going to make you cave? You can’t keep status quo forever. I think Lockwood gave you a demonstration earlier.”_

I didn’t bother answering that. “What would you even do with your freedom? You’re still tied to your skull and I’m still the only one you can talk to" I asked instead.

 _“I would hang around, stretch my plasm. Do you realise how cramped this is?”_ it complained _._

“That’s all?”

_“I might strangle a few people now and again. A little ghost touch here and there,”_

I shook my head. “You’re not exactly making a compelling case. Can you sense anything here?”

The skull sighed. _“It’s hard you know, through the silver glass. I could help you so much more if you let me out,”_

“Just answer the question.”

There was a moment of silence as the skull took in the place. _“Mmm. She’s a feisty one. Feisty and tricky, but not that strong. She envies the living and their vitality.”_

“She sucks out people’s life force.”

_“Yeah well, that’s because she craves it. She’s trying to restore herself. Problem is that the life force she sucks out goes right through her. Not gonna lie, it’s a rush, but it still leaves you sort of hungry and frustrated. Waste of time, really.”_

I wrinkled my nose “Have you killed people in that way?”

_“Meh, it’s happened once or twice.”_

I was probably less horrified than I ought to be.

“Just keep a lookout okay?”

_“Sure, but be careful. She’s everywhere.”_

We walked through the corridors in silence, except for an annoying jaunty tune the skull was humming in my ear. I recognised it from one of the films Quill had been showing it.

Nothing had happened for a while, so I was startled when a loud scream rang out.

Where did it come from? I ran into the auditorium where Holly came out onto the stage from the wings.

“There! She was there! Hanging, all white and limp,” she exclaimed and pointed behind the curtain.

Kate burst through the door on the first balcony out of breath.

“Everyone okay?” she yelled. I gave her a thumbs-up.

I jogged down to the stage. “Did you see her face?”

Holly shook her head. “Honestly, I’m happy I didn’t. Too much hair.”

“What about you? Did you see anything?” I called out to Kate.

“Nothing so far,” she yelled back.

I nodded. “We’ll keep searching!” 

Kate left and I turned back towards Holly.

“You alright, Hol?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. She just caught me off guard is all. She wasn’t exactly beautiful; I’ll tell you that though.”

She was still trembling, so I gave her a piece of chocolate which she reluctantly took.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she was dead. A corpse. You need to be a special sort of weird to be attracted to that.” She made a face.

_“Yeah, that’s a no-go, even for me.”_

A shrill scream pierced the building and Kate came storming in. Her rapier was drawn. She ran all the way to us. She stopped up in front of the stage and rubbed her face hard.

“Urgh! The water tank. That one with the mermaid Cubbins was talking about. She was all dead and uh – dissolving.” She gagged and pulled out a water bottle.

 _“She’s toying with you,”_ the skull chuckled ominously.

I huffed a bit. “So, Holly, you got the Hangman’s daughter. I got the Sultan’s revenge, and you got the mermaid one.” I looked at Kate, who nodded and drank some more water.

“She’s going through her greatest hits, only this time she’s showing herself as actually dead.”

I kicked the bag with the chains in frustration. “We need to narrow it down somehow. That Parkins girl said that the original stage had been burnt along with the casket from the Sultan’s revenge, so that’s not the source.”

“Maybe it’s one of the props,” Kate suggested. “Could be one of the swords that went through the casket. I can stay here and look through the boxes and the wardrobe,” she offered.

I nodded. “Then Holly and I can keep her busy,”

“Sure,” Holly agreed.

We separated again. I went out in the foyer and Holly went upstairs.

I looked around, tempted to break into the snack booth.

_“Have you perhaps wondered why the ghost has appeared now? D’you think that someone around here might have a grudge against someone?”_

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked the skull which was still in my rucksack.

“ _I’ve got to say it’s sort of impressive in a way. Most ghosts have a bit of a build-up. You know, a few scratches, some cold spots, an apparition or two. This one is just BAM, full force. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?”_

I shrugged. “Maybe they just hadn’t noticed?” I suggested, even if I knew it would be unlikely.

_“Could it be that maybe someone found a trinket somewhere and hid it?”_

I frowned. “If they hid it intentionally, it might be anywhere.”

I went down the corridor with the mechanical toys. There was something creepy about it. The too-wide smiles on the clowns, got to me especially. I had passed them several times, but now I studied them more closely, looking for anything that might be a Source, checking the temperature as I went.

The biggest case contained a large elaborate thing. It was a traditional caravan in a scenery with fake grass, trees, and a full moon. There was a sign above it that said ONE POUND. YOUR FORTUNE TOLD.

Below it was a slot and a silver hatch.

_“Come on, do it. You know you want to,”_

I scoffed. “It’s just a silly machine.”

_“What, you don’t have a pound to spare?”_

As it was, I _did_ have a pound, right in my pocket. I was already running my finger over it.

I shook my head and put it in. What was the worst that could happen?

A light came on inside the caravan and the side of it swung open to reveal a badly made witch, hunched over a crystal ball.

A cackling sounded and a strange brightness flared in the ball. It didn’t look electric, but I couldn’t be entirely sure because it disappeared as fast as it had come. Then the lights in the caravan flickered and doors and cabinets opened and closed, revealing all sorts of skulls and demons. Then, slowly as if it were tired, the caravan closed jerkily up again.

The hatch made a small _clink_ when something pushed against it. I was about to open it when it made another small _clink._

_“Tell us then. What does it say?”_

Oddly enough there were two slips of paper instead of one.

The first one read:

_He will go into the dark._

The second one:

_He will sacrifice his life for you._

I stared at them, before crumpling them up and putting them in my pocket. What sort of fortune was that? It was stupid. And it came from a machine. Stupid machine.

I tried very hard to keep the thoughts at bay, but somewhere in the crinkles of my brain, I couldn’t help but think that there were two slips because there were two boys that filled my thoughts, and maybe the fortunes weren’t really mine. I kicked the stand.

_“Come on! What did it say? I bet it was awful.”_

“Oh, would you shut up,” I snapped. “You never shut up,”

It didn’t respond, which was odd. It really never shut up, and if it did, it wasn’t because I told it to.

I took off my rucksack and took a look at it. The skull was mouthing something I didn’t get and too late, I realised that the lever was closed. But I hadn’t closed it.

I looked around and saw a warm golden light reflected in one of the display cases. It was small, but it slowly grew and multiplied.

I put my hand on my rapier and was about to draw it, but something about those lights was mesmerising. They condensed and from the lights came a woman and she was beautiful. Not just beautiful, she was breath-taking. And not because she was perfect either, but something about her called out to me. She was flawed. Just as I was.

I felt myself relaxing. This was silly. I couldn’t fight her. I shouldn’t

 _“You worry too much darling,”_ she smiled at me and my hand fell from my rapier. She wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. She would protect me. I could see some of myself in her.

She beckoned for me to come with her and hesitantly, I followed. I took two steps and halted. Was this real? Was this a good idea?

 _“Come with me… Come…”_ she gave me a warm smile as if she was genuinely happy to see me.

I took another step and then another.

She floated elegantly along and before I knew it, we were at the double doors to the auditorium. What were we doing here?

 _“Come with me. I’ll teach you,”_ She smiled, like a mother who actually wanted her child.

What did she want to teach me? I followed her through the doors and into the auditorium. It was full. People were cheering.

She beckoned me to follow her and we walked down the aisle towards the stage.

_“You’re just like me,”_

What did she mean? I wasn’t half a beautiful as her.

_“A heartbreaker.”_

No, that couldn’t be right.

 _“I can show you how it’s done.”_ She laughed as if we were sharing a private joke and I could feel my lips involuntarily quirk in a small smile.

_“You love the power it gives you.”_

Wait. I didn’t want any sort of power. I frowned.

_“To have them in your hand.”_

I shook my head. What was I doing here? Someone was shouting and it wasn’t the audience.

I shook my head to try to hear what they were saying.

 _“Come to me,”_ she beckoned again. _“We’re the same,”_

I shook my head again. Something was wrong. The audience sounded more distant.

 _“We’re the same,”_ she repeated.

No. We weren’t.

_“Heartbreaker.”_

I didn’t want to break anyone’s heart. “No”

_“You love the power you have over them,”_

“No.” I gritted my teeth.

_“We’re the same,”_

“NO!” I screamed and ripped out my rapier. “We are NOT the same!”

In one motion, I sliced the sword upwards, dispelling the ghost for now and freeing myself from the trance she had put me in.

I collapsed on all fours, grappling for my throat, trying to breathe properly. Holly was next to me on her knees, out of breath, with eyes full of worry.

Up on the stage, Kate was frantically searching through the props.

“It went in that box! The yellow one,” Holly screamed to Kate who leaped to it.

A few seconds later, it was as if a heavy sigh went through the entire theatre. Kate had contained the source.

I sat up and she came down to show us the blood-stained tiara.

Kate looked at me carefully. “Lucy, I didn’t know that – you know. Liked girls.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You know _like_ -like.”

“Oh.” I blinked a bit. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Holly blanched. “You think that’s why it went after boys? Because they like girls?”

Kate shrugged. “Well, statistically speaking, it _is_ _mostly_ boys who like girls.”

“And La Belle Dame _did_ base her shows on seduction.” I pointed out.

Holly made a face.

“I don’t think that’s why it went after me though. I was just… a bit vulnerable for a moment.” I looked away.

Kate gave me a small smile and went to pack our things.

Holly gave me a one-armed hug. “Anytime you want to talk, I’m here,” she whispered in my ear.

I swallowed but couldn’t make myself respond with anything but a small nod. She got up to help Kate.

Something inside of me was deeply ashamed. I had lost control again. Just like that time with the boy and the bloody footprints.

But that wasn’t all. I couldn’t help but think that maybe they were right.

The skull and the ghost.

Maybe we _were_ alike, La Belle Dame and me.

I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself and swiped furiously at the tears that were spilling out against my will.

For the first time in a long time, I wondered if maybe it wasn’t easier just to leave. Not just leave Lockwood and co but leave London. I knew Newcastle well enough.

Surely no one would follow me there.

There would be no Quill to hold me and ask me to stay. There would be no Lockwood to kiss me.

There would be no pressure.

Just freedom.

Unfortunately, there was the unfinished business with Marissa Fittes.

Maybe I would go when that was over.

Yeah. Finish this and then I would take the train.

The others would get by without me. They did fine before they met me. They would do fine again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That got a bit long.  
> I loved this case. I used to do a lot of theatre when I was younger, and Stroud really captured the ambience. The only thing he was missing was the heat on that bloody stage. Standing there, sweating buckets in a period costume is not for the faint of heart. 
> 
> I hoped you enjoyed it.
> 
> Please leave a comment to tell me what you think of the chapter, or the story as a whole, or just to say hi.
> 
> I always love to hear from you guys!


	48. Knitting

_Lucy:_

Something about the case didn’t sit well with us. The skull was right – a powerful haunting without any build-up? Then there was the Source itself. The tiara covered in blood didn’t quite look like a normal prop from a magic show. It was likely planted there.

As soon as we'd packed our things, I called George for backup. Lockwood and Quill came along too but as soon as they arrived, Quill and Kate slipped away. It wouldn’t do for her to be recognised by DEPRAC.

Holly filled the others in on what had happened. Lockwood kept glancing in my direction, but I concentrated on packing all the things and making sure we had everything.

People from the fair had also started turning up. At the exact moment Kate had wrapped the tiara in silver, Charley Budd had apparently recovered completely and asked for food.

Hesitantly the stagehands and performers came into the theatre and I worried that some of them might have sticky fingers. I had seen the type of employer Tufnell was and odds were that he didn’t pay his crew much, so I stuck to the equipment and let the others handle the rest.

George came up next to me. “So, how did it go with Godwin?”

“Shh! Not so loud.” I looked around a bit. “We really ought to come up with some sort of code name for her.”

“How about stuck-up bi –“

“George!” I admonished.

He shrugged uncaringly.

“It wasn’t half-bad actually. I suppose she can be a bit…”

“Stuck-up?” he offered.

“Yeah… but it wasn’t bad. She was actually nice. Fun. I think the skull has a crush on her,”

George snorted. “Figures.”

“How about you? Did you find what you needed at the library?”

“Well, I went to Hardimann Library to follow up on a lead. Might be something interesting but I’ll fill you in when I know more.”

I frowned. “Wasn’t Hardimann out of bounds?”

He shifted a bit.

Many restrictions had been put in place by DEPRAC in recent time, and one of them were restrictions on several of the libraries. Now you were only allowed to enter with a permit. Something that was incredibly hard to come by and something I knew George had been moaning about not having.

“Well, it’s fine. I know the curator there and he owes me a few favours.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s it about then?”

He took off his glasses and slowly polished them in his shirt. “I’ve been researching the start of the Problem. From the very beginning when Fittes and Rotwell first started out, but I’ll keep you posted.”

“Sounds promising. Just be careful, yeah?”

He snorted. “You know me; I’m always careful. You’re the wild card.”

I shook my head. “Where did the others go?”

“I believe they went to interview that girl – the stage manager. She was the most likely candidate for planting the Source, right?”

“Yeah…” There was something about it that nagged me. The planted Source, but not from this case. It was like the thought was there, but just out of reach. The concept seemed familiar, but we didn’t have that many cases of murder by ghost.

I shook my head, trying to let it go. I left George in charge of our stuff and went outside for some air, just as the fair was flooded with red and blue lights from DEPRAC and the police.

Along with the police came a boy, probably close to my age, in Fittes uniform with a special badge. One of the specialised agents Kate had talked about. He smirked at me and looked me up and down. He looked around and came towards me.

“You’re Lucy Carlyle, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. And you are?”

“You can call me James,” he grinned at me. “Is your boyfriend around?”

It took me a second to remember what he was talking about. “Quill? No, not tonight.”

His smile didn’t waver, and he stepped forward. “That’s a shame, isn’t it? No one to warm you up, is there?”

“Well, it’s not exactly cold out, is it?” I took a step back and tried to discreetly look around for one of my team-mates.

“Indeed. You know, I can see why you’re the one he went with.” He took another look that lingered around my hips and my chest before smiling at me in a way that was possibly meant to be charming.

I didn’t bother responding with anything other than a raised eyebrow. I felt like crossing my arms in front of me, but I didn’t want to move my hand too far away from the throwing knives or my rapier.

He took another step closer. I couldn’t move any further back. I was up against the wall of the theatre.

I looked over his shoulder but couldn’t see anyone I knew. Everyone had their back turned. One of the officers from DEPRAC turned his head, but quickly looked away, pretending not to see anything. It made my blood boil.

I huffed a bit. “Well, was there anything in particular you wanted?”

His grin widened. “Oh, there are _lots_ of things I want.”

He put his hand under my chin, tilting my head upwards, and I was about to knee him in the jewels.

“Excuse me, if I’m interrupting something, but I believe your job requires you. Mr Rumsford, wasn’t it?”

Lockwood stood, leaning casually against the wall, pointing in the direction of the flashing lights.

His smile was pleasant enough, but the set of his jaw and the kink of his eyebrow gave away his fury.

The Fittes special agent smirked at Lockwood.

“Of course! If you’ll have me excused.” He winked at me and let his hand fall from my chin. I felt like biting it.

I didn’t breathe properly until I couldn’t see him anymore. When he turned behind a tent, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“You alright?” Lockwood asked me carefully.

I nodded and gave him a polite smile. “I am. Thank you for the assistance.”

He tried to reach for my hand, but I crossed my arms. “Did you sign things over to DEPRAC?” I asked.

“I did. You did good work here today,” he smiled at me.

I scoffed. “ _Two_ people did good work today, and I wasn’t one of them.”

“That can’t be true,” he smiled gently at me.

I shook my head. “Just ask Holly. Or Kate,” I added after looking around.

“Whatever happened, everything is fine.” He rubbed my arms. “The haunting is over, we’ve been paid, we signed it over to DEPRAC and we can go home.”

I sighed. “Yeah. Let’s go home,”

I walked around him to go back into the theatre.

I woke up around nine the next morning. I blearily opened one eye to see the skull glowering at me. I stretched my arm out to open the lever and let the litany of curses overflow me.

“It wasn’t actually me that shut you off.” I pointed out when I managed to get a word in edgeways.

The skull scoffed. _“No! It was worse! You just let some ghost-woman get her filthy plasm on me? I feel violated! It’s your fault! This jar is your responsibility! I’m under your care!”_

“Get over it, skull. Nothing happened and you’re not a child. You’re fine.”

_“No thanks to you!”_

I sighed. “Have you thought of anything more about Marissa Fittes?”

 _“Have you thought of anything more about my freedom?”_ it countered.

“If we can find some way of freeing you in a way that doesn’t include you killing my friends, I’ll see what I can do.”

_“Well, you’re no fun.”_

“But Marissa – do you remember anything?”

_“I think I’ve told you everything,”_

I hit the pillow in frustration. “You haven’t told me _anything_ you _never_ tell me anything! Not about Marissa or who you are or about the Other Side! No facts or anything, just insults and lewd comments, _”_ I cried out.

_“Well, when you’re a ghost you learn that facts are overrated. They don’t matter so much after a while. As a spirit it’s all about emotions and desire! You know that. All that unfinished business isn’t exactly quantifiable. D’you know what my desire is?”_

I made a face. “Do I _want_ to know?”

The skull grinned at me. _“To live, Lucy. I want to_ live! _That’s why I talk to you. That’s why I’ve turned my back on what waits on the Other Side._ ”

I pursed my lips. “Well, what _does_ wait for us on the Other Side?”

Rather than giving me some insight, the skull made a ghostly snort. _“You’ve been there. What did you see?”_

“Well, I saw a lot of darkness. It was cold…” I trailed off.

_“No pearly gates or angel’s trumpets to greet you?”_

I huffed. “Well, I was a bit busy, trying to survive.”

_“Me too! That’s basically what I’ve been doing for the past hundred years. Sticking to my lovely Source here, rather than wandering in the dark like all those other idiots. I keep myself turned towards the light.”_

I bit my lip and considered my next question carefully. “Can anyone become a Type Three or was there something special about you?”

The skull’s plasm wrapped around its Source, giving me a glimpse of how his face had looked in life. The face I had seen clearly on the Other Side. He grinned at me. When he was like this, I had a harder time thinking of him as an ‘it’.

_“See, now you’re asking the right questions. I knew you’d want to hang out when you die. What do you think the secret is?”_

I frowned. “Is it to do with the Talents?”

 _“Maybe, maybe not. All I’m saying is that while Type Threes are rare, so are the people who can talk to them.”_ He winked and blew me a kiss before dissolving in a cloud of plasm.

I chuckled. “Then what about Marissa? What sort of questions did she ask?”

A pair of glowing eyes appeared in the plasm. _“Probably a lot of the same ones you are. Life after death and the Other Side and such. She was extremely interested in ectoplasm though.”_

“Ectoplasm? Why?”

_“Well, it’s fascinating stuff. You can do all sorts of fun things with it. Like killing people. Or you can mould it into funny or obscene shapes. That’s what I’ve spent almost a century perfecting. Look at this; I call it the Happy Farmhand,”_

I squeezed my eyes together, trying to unsee it. It didn’t work.

“Impressive, but somehow I don’t think that’s what she was interested in,”

_“It wasn’t, to be fair. No sense of humour, that dry old crone.”_

“Well then what did she want with it?”

_“Well, ectoplasm is sort of what makes you, you, I suppose. It’s what you are, once you leave behind that rotting flesh. Your life force or whatever you want to call it. Your essence or Soul if you want to get philosophical. It doesn’t decay, it doesn’t change. That’s how I knew that Penelope Fittes is really Marissa.”_

“Even though they look so different?”

The spirit in the jar blew a raspberry at me. _“I couldn’t care less about how people look. I’m hanging out with you, aren’t I.”_

I reached for the lever.

_“No, come on. Can’t you take a joke?”_

I put my hand down and looked at it with an eyebrow raised.

_“But seriously. When you’ve been dead for a while, you start to realise how superficial it all is. How you look, I mean. When that’s said though, you should know that I very much appreciate that you’ve never been shy around me. Even if I suspect that you mostly just forget I’m in the room when you undress,”_

The plasm wrapped around the skull again to make a grinning face, and especially with what the skull had just told me, I was suddenly acutely aware that while there wasn’t a body, this thing in front of me in the jar, was essentially a person.

Not just a person, but a boy.

And he had seen me naked. Many, many times.

I could feel my cheeks burning and my jaw go a little slack.

The skull cackled with joy.

 _“I don’t mind sharing, you know!”_ it called after me as I stomped down the stairs, wrapped in my duvet.

I went in the kitchen where Lockwood sat in his pyjamas with a cup of tea. His hair was standing up in weird places. He looked at me with a bemused smile.

“Not a word,” I ground out.

I rummaged about a bit in the drawers before finding what I was looking for.

“Not. A. Word.” I repeated as I clumsily made my way back up.

Lockwood’s smile widened and I frowned in consternation.

 _“You’re turning into a prude_ now _?!”_ the skull protested as I shoved the tea cosy down over the jar with a satisfied smile.

After going about my business, I went back downstairs, where Lockwood and George stood, leaning over the newspaper. I was a bit miffed that I hadn’t been included.

“What’s new? Is it bad?”

Lockwood winced. “You remember how we spoke about Adam Bunchurch some time ago?”

I went to put the kettle on. “Yeah, that he didn’t want to sign over to Fittes?”

“Well, he died.”

“Really? Ghost-touch?”

Lockwood shook his head gloomily. “No. He was attacked. He was on his way home and someone lay in wait for him. They beat him up and left him. He wasn’t found until next morning. He died in the hospital.”

I rubbed my face and sighed. “That’s awful. Are there any suspects?”

“Nope.” He wrinkled his nose. “At least nothing’s mentioned. Quill and uh – Kate are coming in about half an hour. Holly is at Arif’s.” Lockwood continued.

I looked away from him. “Sounds good.”

I slowly went about finding other things we needed for breakfast. Eggs, bacon, tea.

Now we had to set the table for six. One more person and we would have to bring out the extension. Slowly our little family was growing, and it hurt to think that I might leave them. But then again, the whole thing with Fittes had virtually stalled. We didn’t know where to go from here. _I_ didn’t know where to go from here.

“Fancy seeing you here, Carlyle,”

I jumped with a yelp and Kate laughed. She had snuck up on me as I was finding cutlery.

“Wow. It’s good you’re not that jumpy on cases.”

She leaned against the counter and her smirk turned into something softer.

“How are you after yesterday?” she asked me.

I shrugged. “I’m fine. Bit angry with myself, but that’s the worst of it.”

“Happens to everyone from time to time.”

She looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping before leaning in with a conspiratorial grin.

“Once, we were on a case – that was before Ned…” her smile dropped a little. “Before Ned died. Just after the Joplin case. We were out to clear a house. You know how it is; old woman died; her kids want to sell the house as soon as possible. Anyway, this old lady apparently had some unfinished business –“

Kate interrupted herself with a chuckle. “She was knitting a pair of socks for her grandson,” she told me with mock seriousness. The effect was diluted by the giggles that kept escaping.

She looked over her shoulder again and leant in closer. “Quill got possessed or what influenced or how you want to put it, and he just took her needles and started to knit out of the blue –“ she was again cut off by her own giggle. I couldn’t help but smile.

She composed herself, “It took us _forever_ to find the Source. Turned out to be a darning needle that had fallen down a crack in the floorboards.”

She laughed out loud, not being able to keep it together anymore. “By the end of it, Quill had managed to knit three pair of socks,” she snorted. “You should ask him if he can still do it.”

I laughed with her. We laughed until we had to support ourselves against the counter.

That’s how Quill himself along with Lockwood found us. “Uh – Is everything alright?” Quill asked hesitantly, sending us into another laughing fit.

“Knitting,” was all I could get out while gasping for air.

Quill’s cheeks turned deep pink and he looked at Kate accusingly.

I laughed again, wiping tears from my eyes, and holding my poor stomach.

Lockwood looked highly interested, but Kate didn’t seem interested in sharing anything else. George came out from his room, probably to see what all the noise was about.

We heard the door open and shut and turned expectantly towards the entrance to the kitchen where Holly predictably showed up not a few seconds later. She gave Quill and Kate a look of alarm.

“Which way did you get in?” she asked as the first thing.

Quill pointed over his shoulder. “We took the back door.”

Holly nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, that might be – yeah, that might be fine,” she mumbled to herself, pacing back and forth in front of the kitchen table.

Lockwood “Hol, what’s going on?”

“I uh – Sir Rupert Gale. He was there, at Arif’s,” she told us distractedly.

Kate’s eyes widened and her hand shot up to the light brown wig she was wearing again today.

“What did he want?” Lockwood asked.

Holly grimaced. “Urgh. He’s so foul,” Kate nodded distractedly in agreement.

“He wanted to know where we’d been. Yesterday and the other night. He asked where George had been,” she glanced at George whose face predictably didn’t give anything away.

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

She rubbed her face. “Well, I panicked! I said that there was a case yesterday and the other night and besides that, I’m not keeping track of you all.”

She looked at Kate. “Then he wanted to know about the new girl. Asked why she hasn’t been registered to the agency.”

Kate's eyes widened.

Holly went to the sink and took a large glass of water. “I’m sorry, but I panicked. I said you weren’t actually an agent. That you were Lucy’s sister from up north, didn’t have any Talent to speak of and that you wanted to come and see how we work,”

“Brilliant, Holly,” Lockwood praised.

I nodded in agreement. “You did _so_ well, Holly.”

Lockwood started pacing. “We knew they were checking up on us. In reality, we've been reckless. We should probably meet somewhere else in the future.”

He looked at Quill who raised his hands.

“Don’t look at me. If they’re having you under surveillance, there’s a risk that they’re following you. I don’t want you to lead them to my doorstep.”

I thought about it a bit. “What if we split up and arrive separately? Or we can meet in different places each time we meet.”

Lockwood rubbed the back of his neck. “Quill of course can come here as he pleases. You’ve got a good excuse to come here,”

He nodded towards me and I felt my cheeks warming.

“Speaking of which,” he continued, “you should probably keep an eye out for James Rumsford.”

He looked at Kate and Quill.

Kate made a face. “He’s still not as bad as Gale, but he can be quite unpleasant to pretty girls. Are you alright, Lucy?”

Quill looked at me with a worried frown. In fact, they all looked worried.

I crossed my arms in front of myself. “I’m fine. Nothing happened.”

Lockwood’s jaw worked. “What if I hadn’t come by when I did? Do you think you would still be fine?”

I snorted. “Thank you for saving me, but I think that what you saved the most, was Rumsford’s ability to have children in the future.”

His frown turned into a grin.

“But seriously, be careful.” Kate butted in.

Quill nodded. “You’re a double target. One thing is that everyone thinks we’re together and I have an unofficial price on my head, but you’re a beautiful girl too and these shits can virtually get away with anything and they know it.”

My cheeks were burning from the compliment and Quill smiled softly at me. I looked away. It was far too easy to get drawn in.

“Right.” Lockwood cleared his throat. “I think we all need something to eat now, wouldn’t you say?”

“Hear, hear!” George cried out, even though he was already stuffing his mouth with a chocolate croissant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys who commented and in general thank you guys for reading. I'm happy you're staying patient and sticking with the story.  
> I hope you've enjoyed the chapter and find it in you to leave a comment for me. I get so excited every time I get an email, but then it turns out to be like a Pokémon newsletter or something like that. And while that can be exciting, I love hearing from you considerably more.
> 
> So please, please leave a comment with what you think of the chapter.


	49. Secrets and Thresholds

_Lucy_

_..._

“So, George, did you get any further in your research?” I asked over breakfast.

George studied Kate carefully. She gave nothing away. It was like watching two mountains facing off against each other.

“No,” he finally replied. “I’m afraid my resources have run out. Since I don’t have the necessary permits.”

He didn’t take his eyes off Kate for a moment. He didn’t even blink.

“I assume you’re talking about library permits.” Kate pursed her lips. “Bobby has them. If you want, I can ask him for the things you need.”

George narrowed his eyes at her. “The things I need are hard to find. I have a process.”

“And yet none of the steps in it involves a shower,” Quill commented, leaning over the table to grab the marmalade.

George swatted Quill’s hand with a spoon. He and Lockwood did one of those things where they had an entire conversation without speaking and barely looking at each other. It barely took the blink of an eye. Others might not even have noticed the communication unless they had seen the two working closely for years. Which I had.

“I mean no offence,” Lockwood started carefully, “but I really don’t want to bring more people in on this than absolutely necessary.”

Kate made a bemused smile and looked around at us. “It’s just Bobby.”

Quill sat next to her, biting his lip, intensely studying the raw-bones I'd drawn on the thinking cloth. He didn’t say anything.

“The more people who know, the more in danger we all are. Especially you,” Lockwood pointed out to her.

She crossed her arms with a frown.

“He’s not wrong, Kate. I know he wouldn’t betray us on purpose, but how long do you honestly think he would last in an interrogation by Gale?” Quill asked her quietly. “It’s safer for both of you.”

Kate sighed and leaned back in her chair.

“I just already feel guilty about lying about us,” she told Quill. “He got so angry with me that we had apparently kept this big secret from him.”

Quill scoffed. “So that’s why I haven’t heard from him.”

“He only just started talking to me again,” she lamented.

Lockwood made a small wince and looked at Kate. “I’ll have to be honest uh - Kate and say that I think it’s great that you’re here for breakfast. Truly. But I’d rather like to keep the scheming separate. The less you know, the less danger we’re in.”

Kate pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Lockwood –“ Holly protested weakly but was cut off by him.

“I mean it seriously, Holly. It’s a dangerous game we’re playing. We can’t let the wrong people know our moves,”

“Seriously, Lockwood? ‘ _wrong people’_?” I blurted.

Lockwood gave a sheepish smile and raised his hands placatingly towards Kate. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just think you’re in a vulnerable pos –“

Kate cut him off by raising her hand. She looked at her plate while tapping her finger on the table. When she looked up, it was with a face of cool detachment. She smiled at Lockwood, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“It’s fine. I need to go soon anyways. You can plot then.”

I saw Lockwood swallow hard and Kate’s mouth curled in a small smirk.

Slowly, conversation started to flow again. Kate calmly finished two donuts, a plate of waffles, and a scone, and washed it down, slowly drinking a cup of tea.

Never once did her stare stray from Lockwood who shrunk in his seat. With every little squirm, cough, swallow and pull at his collar, Kates smirk grew. By the end, his face was pink, and he sat, staring at his plate.

Quill looked highly amused.

“Well, it’s been nice,” Kate stood and smiled widely, “but now I need to go. I need to get home and get changed before work.”

I remembered something. “Wait, you can take one of my suitcases! Someone’s probably watching outside and with what Holly said, we can pretend that you’re leaving to go home!”

I hurried upstairs and grabbed one of the cases and emptied it on my bed. Then I grabbed the skull and ran down to follow Kate out.

Goodbyes were said, I dropped the jar off on the counter and walked Kate out. The taxi Holly had called for her was already there. I hugged her, both for show and because I wanted to.

“Thank you for helping us on the case. We really couldn’t have done it without you.”

She smiled and took my hands. “Any time, Lucy. And thank you for having me for breakfast. I have to admit that I had fun.” She winked and went down to the taxi with a small skip. I stayed and waved until the taxi was gone before going back in. I thought it was a nice touch.

When I came back in the kitchen, Lockwood was still sitting in his chair, with his arms crossed. He blew out his cheeks before standing up. He shook himself, almost like a dog and then he was back to his normal animated self.

He smiled brightly as if he hadn’t just spent the last forty-five minutes sitting in his chair like a child that had been scolded. “Right then. George. What do you have and what are you missing?”

Holly shook her head but didn’t say anything.

George hurried to his room and returned with a small stack of papers. Holly drew the blinds and Lockwood shut the door to the hall. I opened the lever on the jar.

_“Oh. Joy. You brought me down for a lecture.”_

George cleared his throat dramatically and Quill rolled his eyes.

“Just get on with it, Cubbins. Melt my brain.”

Lockwood made a small cough. “What Quill means is; please, amaze us.”

The skull snorted in derision.

George narrowed his eyes at Quill. “First of all, take a look at this guy.”

He slammed a piece of paper with a copy of a photo, taken from a newspaper. I squinted at the grainy image.

It was a man, getting out of a car. Half his face was in shadow, but the lines, the eyebrows, and the long grey hair were clear.

“That’s the ghost from the mausoleum,” I breathed.

The others leaned in.

“Who is he?” Lockwood asked.

“That would be a certain Dr Neil Clarke. He was Marissa Fittes’ personal doctor. He was the one who saw her in her final days, the one who signed the death certificate and confirmed cause of death to the media. According to him, she died from a ‘wasting disease that affected all the organs of her body, which had all the aspects of premature old age’. She stayed at Fittes House, didn’t go to the hospital. Only Dr Clarke and Dr Clarke alone had access to her at the end. After her death, he fades from the records.”

Holly scoffed. “Not surprising as he was lying in her tomb,” she murmured.

“But Marissa didn’t die. And the one person who knew it was silenced immediately afterwards,” Lockwood concluded.

“No wonder he’s so livid,” I said.

George nodded. “So that’s our friend in the tomb. The next issue is how Marissa reappears as Penelope. We agree that that’s what happened, right?”

The skull made a disgruntled sound. _“You ought to by now! I’ve been telling you long enough!”_

“You’re a compulsive liar,” I said. “Not you, George, the skull.”

George waved it off.

“Actually, I haven’t quite figured out the transformation process yet, but I have an interesting lead, which we’ll get to in a moment. But what we know is that after Marissa’s supposed death, her daughter Margaret takes over the agency.”

Quill nodded and George continued.

“She wasn’t really suited for the job, she was quiet and reserved, but was head of Fittes for just three years before she died.”

Holly frowned. “How did _she_ die?”

George shrugged. “I haven’t been able to find any proper death certificate.”

“The rumour around Fittes is that she killed herself.” Quill supplied.

“In the end, it doesn’t matter all that much,” George waved him off, “because then ‘ _Penelope’_ pops up. Now, she appears to be a real person – I’ve found birth certificates, hospital records and everything, but it doesn’t match what the skull’s telling us. It must be forged.

I huffed. “But how did she do it? How did she make herself look like that?”

George looked around us with the air of a magician about to reveal that he had our card.

We waited patiently. Even Quill, even though he looked unimpressed with the theatrics.

He took another photocopy out of his pile of paper. “I found and article in an old Kent newspaper, from sixty years ago when Marissa and Tom Rotwell were just starting out as a team. Back then, almost nobody believed in ghosts if you can believe it so the two were considered complete eccentrics. The Problem hadn’t begun to spread yet, so the journalist makes a lot of jokes at their expense.”

He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “ _Marissa Fittes is a slim, bony girl with short, cropped hair and an attitude of unusual intensity. In clipped confident tones she tells me of their strange supernatural experiences “the dead are among us,” she says, “and they bring with them wisdom and secrets of the past.” She ignores my scepticism and tells me she has already written a monograph on the substance of spirits, which she terms “ectoplasm”. “It is the immortal stuff that is inside all of us,” she says. “Understanding it will bring great benefits to humanity. Perhaps, if we can exploit its transformative power, it will give us control over life and death.” At present, she admits regretfully, her ideas fall on stony ground. Having been unable to find a magazine that would accept her piece, she has had it printed at her own expense.”_

Quill scoffed and leaned back in his chair. “ _’The transformative power of ectoplasm’?_ Sounds like nonsense to me.”

Lockwood frowned. “There’s nothing about any of this in her published writing, is there? Not that I can remember.”

George shook his head. “No, and that’s what makes it interesting and why I want to track it down. It’s taken me months, but this morning at a remote library, I found a reference to _Occult Theories_ by an anonymous writer. It was privately printed in Kent about the correct time and only three copies are known to exist. One at the Black Library at Fittes House, one was bought by our friends at the Orpheus Society and one went to the Spiritualist Museum in Greenwich.”

Quill leaned forward “Where, exactly was it printed? Through which company?”

George took off his glasses and rubbed them in his shirt. “I didn’t take it down.”

Quill rolled his eyes. “I remember something about us having an office in Kent that shut down in the seventies. I don’t think we print privately in general, but maybe I could check our archives to see if I can find it?” he offered. “It would be a lot safer than going somewhere out of bounds.”

George narrowed his eyes at him.

“Hell, you can even come with, if you want,” Quill offered.

George took a deep breath. “No, it’s fine. But if you don’t find it within two days, I’m going to Greenwich.”

Quill rolled his eyes and took an apple. “Whatever.”

“This is important,” George continued, “We might solve some real mysteries with this.”

Lockwood beamed. “This is great. If we can piece it all together, we can go to Barnes. Or the newspapers. Make everything public. We just need some concrete proof.”

“I think I’ve cracked the wider issue too. The Problem.” He looked at us over his glasses. “It all goes back to forbidden acts more than fifty years ago.”

“Good god, Cubbins. Just get on with it. Either that or somebody pass me a pillow.” Quill complained.

George pushed his glasses up. “Well, if that’s how it is, I’ll keep it short. Marissa and Tom Rotwell started the Problem. The end.”

Lockwood coughed a little but plastered a grin on his face. “Now, George, I’m sure Quill didn’t mean to sound so wearily contemptuous of all your hard work, _did_ you, Quill?” he bit out.

Quill smirked. “No, no, that was _completely_ coincidental.”

“See, George, continue,” Lockwood smiled.

George rolled his eyes. “Fine. Now, they’re first heard of sixty years back but back then no one took them seriously. A few years later, they did.”

“Because the Problem had begun to spread.” Holly interjected.

“Exactly, and they were the only ones fighting it. Slowly, their methods gained recognition, all the things agencies use today – salt, iron, and the like. That’s where it started.”

I nodded. “They had some famous cases in the beginning too. The Mud Lane Phantom, the Highgate Terror –“

“Precisely, but there’s another way of reading the data. I went to work, mapping out all the cases they had and where they worked, and the odd thing is that it seems as it wherever those two go, ghosts seem to follow, not the other way around.” George told us excitedly.

Holly cocked her head. “You think they did something to stir the ghosts up?” She took a small sip of her green tea.

George nodded confidently. “And we all know what _really_ makes them go crazy.”

I looked at Lockwood whose knuckles had gone white.

“You think they were visiting the Other Side.” I whispered.

George nodded. “I think Marissa had an easier time with it though, but I’ll get back to that. So, we know they were a team for four or five years after which they suddenly split up. No one knows why. Immediately after, Marissa starts her own agency. Rotwell follows a few months after and they’ve been rivals ever since.”

“Until now,” Lockwood added. “Now ‘ _Penelope’_ or Marissa is in charge of both.”

“Exactly. Anyway, we met Tom Rotwell’s grandson a few months ago. Remember the things he was using? The Sources, the armour – it must've taken _years_ to prepare but it still felt off. Clumsy in a way like someone trying to copy something but doing it the hard way. Like trying to recreate a lovely dish without knowing the ingredients.”

“Trust you to make anything about eating,” Quill murmured and took a bite off his apple.

I threw half a biscuit at him and watched it bounce off his nose. He glared at me with crumbs on his entire face, but it wasn’t too severe.

George rolled his eyes. “My point is that what Rotwell was trying to do was pathetic. We know he did it in Chelsea and later at Aldbury Castle, but all that clumsiness? He was still in a test-phase. But if he was just in a test-phase, then who was been stirring ghosts up for the past sixty years?”

“Marissa,” Lockwood gasped.

“Ding-ding-ding, right in one. And I bet she’s doing it somewhere nice and private. Somewhere she won’t be disturbed. Somewhere that no-one would think to look. A mysterious building where many parts are off-limits…” he trailed off, looking at Quill.

“No way… The Strand? Just in the middle of everything?” Quill exclaimed.

“That’s where the entire problem is emanating from.”

Quill rubbed his face.

“But why?” Holly asked, shaking her head. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why do they keep doing it? Why take the risk? And with the terrible consequences. All the people who have died because of this.”

George’s eyes hardened. “Whatever she’s up to, it’s obviously working. Sixty years after starting out, she’s still here, she’s rich and easily the most powerful person in Britain.”

I went to refill the kettle and kicked the bottom of the cabinet. It wasn’t fair. All the people that woman had hurt. I slammed the kettle down on the stove, sloshing water all over the place.

“George, you said something earlier about Marissa having it easier on the Other Side. What did you mean by that?” Lockwood asked.

I leaned against the counter, looking at the others.

“She’s a Listener. One of the two most powerful there are.”

He looked up at me with a small smirk.

I scoffed. “And what’s that supposed to mean? I don’t go waltzing around on the Other Side,” I protested.

 _“Well…”_ the skull trailed off.

“That was _one time!_ ”

“I was thinking about it and it’s so obvious. Marissa talks to spirits. It brings her closer to them. Just like you. After all, out of all of us, who is closest to ghosts? Whose conversations with the skull gave us the most important clue?”

The others turned their heads and looked at me. Like they were studying me or seeing me in a different light.

The skull was having fun with nuzzling up against the jar.

_“It’s like I’ve always told you, Lucy. You and I are a team. No, we’re more than that, we’re an item. Practically soulmates. Everybody knows it,”_

“We are not.” I growled.

_“Are so. In fact, I bet that by the end of this, you’ll run away with me.”_

My face fell a bit, but I thought I recovered quickly enough. “In your dreams,” I glared at it, but the eyes in the plasm narrowed at me.

“Don’t ask me what it said, it’s not relevant.”

George grabbed another biscuit. “See – Marissa talks to ghosts much like you do, except maybe they have more than just lovers’ tiffs. Who knows what sort of things they might have told her? It could be all sorts of secrets about life and death,”

I snorted. “Then she was lucky. This one doesn’t know any sort of secrets.”

Lockwood who had been studying the skull for a while suddenly spoke. “What I’d like to know, skull. Is that if you had an entire conversation with Marissa Fittes, then why didn’t she keep you?”

 _“What?”_ the skull started.

I cocked my head. “That’s actually a really good question.”

“You see, I’ve read her memoirs and re-read them recently and she just goes on and on and on about Type Threes and how rare and powerful they are, but if they’re really so rare, how come you wound up in the basement collecting dust?” Lockwood asked, leaning forward so his face was right up against the glass.

The plasm formed a face that scowled at Lockwood before it changed into a little smirk.

 _“Tell pretty boy this,”_ it told me _“I’ll say that she didn’t seem surprised at my being able to speak. At my robust language, yes. At some of my choicer suggestions about what she could do with herself also. But me actually speaking? That was old news to her. No shock and awe there.”_

I repeated it to the others. Without calling Lockwood a pretty boy.

“So, she had been talking to another Type Three.”

 _“Maybe, maybe not, but I can’t imagine her finding a better conversationalist than –“_ I shut off the valve numbly.

The skull frowned at me.

“Maybe the book we’re looking for will shed some light on it.” George said and looked at Quill.

Lockwood nodded. “Another little thing I have to bring to the table, is this.”

He pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket and put it on the table.

Holly snatched it up. “Orange juice – no bits, Choco Leibniz, milk, tomatoes, donuts – this is certainly fascinating, Lockwood, but how is it relevant?”

Lockwood’s cheeks pinked and he rummaged a bit more about in his trouser pocket.

“Aha! Here!” he held another small piece of paper up, victoriously.

Quill sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Just get on with it, Tony.”

“Right. So, I saw Barnes at the fair yesterday –“

“I didn’t see him,” I frowned.

“Well, he was there, and he slipped this into my hand.”

He unfolded the note and put it on the table. “He wants to meet tomorrow at eight. That’s the address.”

“What is it about?” George asked.

Lockwood shook his head. “Don’t know. It was all done rather discreetly. I don’t think he wants anyone to know.” He looked around at each of us. “Do we have any cases?” he asked Holly.

She winced. We have two. Both at seven, but I can call the clients and re-schedule for nine. Then we’ll still have an excuse to go out if we’re stopped.

Lockwood nodded. “We’ll make it work. You probably shouldn’t go, Quill.”

Quill shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on it. I trust you don’t need a nanny. Besides, I’ll be busy at the archives.” He saluted George with his mug and George gave him a nod back. I wrote that down as progress between the two.

After breakfast and after Quill left, I went in the basement.

I started unpacking our things from yesterday’s case, putting everything right. I was about to put the chains away when a throat cleared. I dropped the chains with a bang onto the metal shelf.

“Sorry.” Lockwood smiled sheepishly.

I sighed heavily. I hoped he wasn’t there for a repeat performance or another argument.

“About yesterday,” he started. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

I lifted an eyebrow, a bit confused.

“Kissing you, I mean.” He winced. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have – I just wanted to see if uh –“ he cut himself off and pressed his lips into a hard line.

He rubbed his face and sighed, evidently having a hard time finding the words.

He took a deep breath. “It was very good –“

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped, and he looked accusingly at me.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I’m standing here, trying to be serious, Lucy.”

“I’m sorry, it just reminded me of something.” I smiled at him.

“Like what?”

“Well, someone once told me that a kiss between two people should bloody well be more than good,”

I crossed my arms and looked at the floor after seeing his confused expression.

“I uh – I don’t know what to say to that. I just didn’t want you to be angry with me.”

I sighed heavily. “I’m not angry. I just have a hard time figuring things out and you really aren’t making things any easier for me. Honestly, I don’t get any of you. I mean, odds are that someone better will come along, and you’ll want them instead. What’s the point?”

He scoffed. “I’m having an awfully hard time imagining that happening anytime soon. You’re one of a kind, Lucy.”

I sat down, hugging myself. “What does that even mean?”

He smiled and sat down next to me. “I thought you knew that by now.”

Something inside me snapped. “What exactly am I supposed to know? I know that you think I’m a good agent, but for how long? How long do I have left? Two years? Three at the most? When I lose my talent – that’s it. I’m nothing.”

I felt my eyes getting warm and tears gathering.

He sat down next to me, wide-eyed. “Is that – is that really what you think of yourself? What you think I think of you?”

“What else am I supposed to believe, Lockwood? This is all new to me! I’ve never had anyone _care_ about me before!” I wrinkled my nose. “I mean if not before, then why _now_? I don’t know! The one thing I _do_ know, is that I’m a damn good agent and that’s all you’ve ever seemed to care about. But that’s temporary! What about _after_? All I have is my Talent! Without it I’ll be worthless!”

I swiped furiously at the tears, trying to pull myself together. It was embarrassing.

He frowned and bit his lip. Then he got up and paced. After a few rounds, he reached out towards me.

“Come with me.”

I made a small scoff. I was crying and then he just does that.

He rolled his eyes slightly and gave me a gentle smile. “I want to show you something.”

I got up without taking his hand and he chuckled a bit.

He went upstairs and into the hall, putting on his coat. “Are we going somewhere?” I asked.

“We’re going for a walk. Bring your rapier, just in case.”

I shrugged and put my jacket on. I closed the Velcro strap on my rapier and followed him out the door.

We walked in silence for a bit before Lockwood interrupted it.

“Have I ever told you that I like the way you walk?”

I giggled wetly. “What? That is _so_ random.”

He grinned at me. “It’s true. You walk with purpose. I barely have to slow down. Holly is a nightmare to walk with, have you noticed?”

I laughed. “She does take exceptionally short steps, now that you mention it.”

“But somehow she always manages to be on time anyways. I don’t know how she does it.” He shook his head.

“So, where are we going?”

He smiled slightly but didn’t look at me. “You’ll see.”

It wasn’t far. Not even five minutes and we were there.

Where, you ask?

Marylebone Cemetery. It was one of the abandoned ones. It was a shame, really because some of these old cemeteries had actually been quite beautiful.

This one was completely surrounded by iron panels. It was covered by rust and the panels had been replaced in some places, making it look like the world’s most depressing patchwork.

“Look, if you put your boot in there, there’s a post you can stand on and then you should be able to reach the top of the panels.”

He made a demonstration and in half a second he had elegantly swung himself over the top of the panelling.

“Think you can do that?”

I almost laughed in disbelief, but I tried anyway. The first time, I almost fell backwards and let out a rather undignified yelp. I caught Lockwood laughing behind his hand and I threw a pebble at him.

He grinned “If you can reach me, I’ll help pull you up.”

I just about managed to grab his hand and with a lot of scrabbling and swearing, I finally ended up, lying awkwardly on my belly on top of the stone wall that was behind the panels.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just because you’re shorter than me,” he remarked.

I was completely fine with pretending that.

“It’s easy enough to get down. The wall’s crumbling a bit there. Makes for easy footholds.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked and made a small squeak when I slipped in the rubble.

“I come here from time to time. It’s peaceful,” he said quietly.

We came down and I hadn’t quite understood how high the bramble went until I had my feet on the ground again. The cemetery was completely overgrown.

“This way,” he tapped my arm and nodded towards a narrow path.

I followed him and ended up going sideways. My hair snagged on the brambles and thorns scratched through my leggings. I nearly stumbled several times but slowly, the brambles receded. A few plots in front of us weren’t quite so overgrown, but there were still clear signs of neglect. Ivy had taken over many of the plots. The headstones were mostly covered in algae.

Suddenly, we came to a stop and Lockwood made an awkward shrug. “This is it.”

He nodded towards the two headstones we were standing next to.

They were relatively new – certainly, some of the newest in the cemetery. They were modern, polished dark granite with clean lines.

On one was written in bold letters:

CELIA LOCKWOOD

DONALD LOCKWOOD

_-KNOWLEDGE SETS US FREE_

The other, smaller one simply said,

JESSICA LOCKWOOD

I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to say.

“It wasn’t long after my parents died that they shut down the cemetery for safety reasons so there was some controversy about putting Jessica here. Quill’s mum pushed it through. You haven’t met her yet, but you’ll soon find out she can be quite… persuasive.” He pursed his lips. “Of course, it was made easier because it’s a family plot, the uh – space is already bought and paid for.”

His eyes shifted a bit to the empty space on the right where there was room for one more. “It’s nice, you know. Keeping the family together. I come here sometimes so I’m not left out.”

I looked around at the nearby trees that were completely bark-less and sliced up with both old and new marks of abuse. Combined with the savagely chopped and hacked up brambles and ivy at the edge of the plot, I couldn’t help but wonder, exactly how much time he actually spent here.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” I managed to say.

He sighed and sat down on a nearby overturned headstone. “Sometimes, I find it hard to see the point. What we do, the things we see,” he continued and looked at his hands. “All I’ve ever wanted to do was be an agent. Ever since Quill came and showed me his rapier and let me read his Fittes Manual. It seemed so cool,” he made a small self-deprecating laugh.

“Then my parents died and I...” he trailed off, with his eyes fixed on their headstone.

I wrapped my arms around myself. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me how it happened,”

He gave me a sad smile. “Come here,” he said and patted the headstone he was sitting on “There’s room enough.”

I carefully crossed over to him and sat down. He didn’t respond for a long time and I was starting to think that he was either shutting down like usual or maybe he’d just forgotten what I’d asked.

“It actually wasn’t too far from here. Euston road. That underpass.”

I blinked a little. “So, it was a car accident?”

He nodded. “A rather spectacular one. I was very young. They were making their way for Manchester for a lecture. _The_ lecture. It was supposed to be a summary of all their findings over several years of research. Their cab was hit by a lorry. It caught fire and apparently along with the spilled fuel, it burned so powerfully it took them an hour to put it out. They had to re-lay that part the road.”

“That’s terrible,” I gasped.

“It’s alright. It happened a long time ago. I barely remember them now.” He looked at their headstone.

“I remember the police coming. I could see the blinking lights from my room. There were agents there too for some reason. Fittes agents incidentally. I was looking for Quill down there, he’d just started then. Anyway, they told Jessica and our nanny, but no one told me until the next day. Pointless because I’d been eavesdropping. I’d heard it all already. Double pointless because I was the first to know. I’d seen their shades in the garden, looking at me hours before, when it happened.”

“Did you know they were dead?”

He nodded. “I think I did. Deep down. It’s just that everything has felt so pointless. My parents died in an accident. Then a ghost kills my sister. I was so _angry_. I’ve been angry at everyone and everything and it’s been driving me for all these years. I wanted to fight and destroy as many ghosts as I possibly could before I died myself. That’s it, really. That’s all I wanted.”

He shrugged and looked down.

I looked at him with wide eyes. “You can’t mean that.”

He smiled gently at me. “No. I don’t. Not anymore, but that’s probably why I’ve been focusing so much on how good an agent you are. I still haven’t the foggiest about what I want to do in the future. I do know that I want you in it though,” He gave me a small smile. “I just need to figure out in which capacity.”

He looked at me carefully and I nodded slowly.

“We’ll figure it out,” I promised him.

“It’s all thanks to you, you know. You’ve showed me that there’s more to life than just ghosts. You’ve pushed me in the right direction. That’s why it hit me so hard when you left, and when I thought that Quill might take you away from me. Suddenly everything felt pointless again.” he told me while looking at his hands.

That was a daunting thought.

“So, all this with not having worth beyond your Talents is complete nonsense to me,” he continued. “You mean something special to all of us. You know how nervous and jittery Holly was in the beginning and how confident she is now? You did that.”

I scoffed.

“No, you did. She even told me so. You’re an inspiration to her. Don’t even get me started about George. You know how ornery he can be, but he would do anything for you. Have you noticed that your favourite food is somehow magically on the table after a bad case?”

I quirked a small smile. That was typically George.

“And I didn’t just hire you for your looks.”

“But looks were in the equation?” I asked incredulously.

“What? I like to have something nice to look at,” he defended with a grin. “And I needed someone to balance out George’s...” he trailed off, waving vaguely in the air, trying to find the words. “Well, George,” he ended up with.

“It’s quite impressive what you can do. I’m not going to lie, I really do find your work amazing, but it isn’t so much what you _do_ , that we admire and care about, it’s _who you are_ that matters the most to all of us.”

It wasn’t until he wiped my cheeks that I realised I was crying. He held my head gently gave me a lopsided smile before kissing my forehead.

He bumped our foreheads together a bit before jumping up and stretching.

“Well, we best get going then. The others will wonder where we are.”

He clapped his hands together before reaching one out to me with a large grin.

Suddenly the Lockwood I knew was back in full force, but now I could see through him. I thought back to those months ago when Quill had advised me that if I wanted to start a relationship with Lockwood, I ought to make sure that he wasn’t hiding anything from me.

And now, here we were. He had let me in. He had bared his past for me completely. There were no more secrets.

Then why was I lingering on the threshold?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this got a bit long-ish too, but I did also borrow parts of it (Thank you Jonathan Stroud).  
> I had a hard time writing the graveyard scene, so I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Please don't forget to leave a comment on the way out ❤


	50. Crossing The Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So - we've reached chapter number 50!  
> Thank you for reading 😊

_Lucy:_

After returning home, things went on as normal. We had dinner, had a nice evening before going to bed. Lockwood luckily didn’t seem to have any expectations for anything happen between us after his admissions, but he did seem different. Like he was at rest somehow. I wondered if he felt the same as I had after telling George and Holly about my mum, which in turn reminded me that now it was my turn to tell Lockwood about myself.

I made a face, but the only one there to see it was the skull. I opened the valve, but the expected complaints about having been cut off, didn’t come.

 _“Really?”_ it deadpanned.

“Really what?” I asked, immediately on the defence.

 _“You’re_ actually _planning on running away again?”_

I didn’t respond. I was busy making our supplies ready for the evening’s cases.

_“I’m thrilled of course, you know. Looking forward to getting away from these morons, but who would have thought that the mighty Lucy Carlyle was such a coward?”_

I scoffed. “I’m not a coward.”

 _“Ah, so I misunderstood. We're staying.”_ It made a sigh. I would have thought it was disappointment, but it sounded more like relief.

I bit my lip, considering my next words carefully. “I still don’t know, but I think that leaving would be the only way to give you your freedom without you hurting my friends. We could go somewhere far away, and you could be free.”

I looked away from it, busying myself with filling salt bombs. I still wasn’t sure if I was going or not. Part of me really did want to run away, but what Lockwood had said the day before did change things. That things felt pointless to him when I left. Didn’t that mean I had an obligation to stay?

 _“What?”_ it said in a small voice. _“You would do that? For me?”_

I sighed. “I won’t lie. I have other motivations than that, but it _is_ a factor.” I gave it a small smile.

The skull was quiet for a long time before making an exaggerated scoff.

_“Bah! what is my freedom worth, exactly, if I can’t even kill Cubbins? Nothing! It’s useless!”_

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “You’re not killing anyone.”

_“You’re such a spoilsport.”_

“I can live with that.”

 _“Yeah, well, I can’t,”_ the skull grumbled.

I chuckled a bit. “Was that a joke?”

The skull snorted. _“No. Trust me, if I made a joke, you'd be in stitches.”_

“Really? Because I remember you once said that your jokes were too subtle for me to understand,” I pointed out.

_“I have no recollection of this.”_

I shook my head in exasperation.

“Lucy!”

I turned around to see Holly coming in.

“Are you almost ready?” she asked. “Lockwood is meeting us there.”

“Yes, almost done. Just let me grab a few flares.”

She came over beside me. “Looks good. Are we ready then?”

I nodded. Holly and I took two bags each and went upstairs where George was pacing in front of the phone in the library.

“He still hasn’t called,” he complained when he saw us.

Holly frowned. “Who hasn’t called?”

“Kipps!”

“Huh,” I said with a shrug. “I didn’t know you two were an item now.”

 _“Really? Didn’t think you were one for sharing like that, Lucy,”_ was the skull’s needless comment.

George looked near-apoplectic. “An – no! Lucy! You’re making me regret that fourth donut!” He whined.

I grinned at him.

Holly shook her head. “Are we going or what?”

I left the skull on a shelf in the library and out we went.

Halfway down the street, something was moving in a bush. I grabbed Holly’s arm.

A shapeless blue-ish brown entity came out so sudden it made me do a small jump and squeak.

I should have known who it was sooner from the smell alone, but I felt a bit congested.

It was of course, Flo Bones or Florence Bonnard as she was actually called.

Over the last years she had been helpful to us from time to time, but these last few months, she had proven to be invaluable. Smelly and abrasive as she was, she had been great at gathering information for us as people often didn’t take notice of her. Surprisingly, she was also incredibly well connected.

“Hullo Flo,” George smiled pleasantly.

I shared a look with Holly.

“Hi George,” she smiled back. “I’ve got what you asked,” She gave him a yellowed envelope that looked a bit moist in the corners.

“Brilliant, thanks Flo.” He hurried to put it in his bag.

“’S all right.” She sniffed. “So, you’re good, are you George?”

“Yes, fine… How about you, Flo?”

“Fine.”

“Great.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, we –“

“Oh, hell,” Flo spat. “Not _them_.”

And then she was gone, leaving just the sound of wellingtons and the smell of rotten fish.

I looked behind me. A group of people were coming towards us.

I groaned internally.

In the front was a young-ish man with blond hair and a moustache I had come to loathe with a passion. He wore a green tweed suit and the way he walked so confidently towards us spoke of someone who knows beforehand that he can get away with murder.

A rapier hung at his belt, even though swords were expressly forbidden to anyone who wasn’t an accredited operative which Sir Rupert Gale certainly was not.

You should understand by now, that I was always a passionate person. While I had come to hate Marissa Fittes, I loathed this man with every fibre of my being. I didn’t like him to begin with. That dislike had developed into hatred.

The final nail in the coffin?

That thin white scar across Quill’s left cheek.

 _He_ had done that, and it made my blood boil. I bit my tongue. It took every ounce of my willpower not to follow my instinct to just stab him in the eye.

He was smiling widely, as if we were all the best of friends. Behind him were three young men. They were all tall and with muscles so large they were stretching out the fabric of their Fittes uniforms. I couldn’t help but think about how Quill and Kate made those jackets look so stylish, but these apes looked more like wool-covered hams.

“Why, if it isn’t Lockwood’s little elves. Out for an evening job, are we? But what was that _thing_ with you? A beggar I suppose. You didn’t know it, did you?”

I shook my head, calmly, even though I was imagining the silver blade of one of my throwing knives, lodged in his skull.

“No.” I shrugged. “A beggar, like you said.”

He sneered. “I can still smell its stench. You should have kicked it. Sent it packing if it was bothering you. At least it won’t survive long out on the streets. One of these mornings we’ll find it in the gutter staring at the sky,” he told us with a grin, observing us all closely.

None of us gave anything away.

“And where’s your little leader? The last of the Lockwoods. I do hope he’s not dead. But maybe he would like to join the rest of his family,”

He smirked, looking at each of us as if he was daring us to do something.

I felt as if I had been punched in the gut. My hands hovered near the throwing knives and my rapier, respectively. George too was bristling. I could see the insults and venom building up in his head.

Then Holly was there with a hand on his shoulder.

In these situations, Holly was the best weapon we had. She was so unfailingly glossy and polite that it was impossible to put a finger on any sort of wrongdoing on her part, but her opponents were still left brutally wounded.

She gave Sir Rupert a small smile, with just the right level of polite condescension. She cocked her head ever so slightly to the left. Compared to her flawless, understated, and classy elegance, Sir Rupert Gale seemed loud and vulgar. His colourful clothes and too wide smile made him look like the clown we all knew he were.

“Lockwood is meeting us at one of the locations we’re going to today,”

“Aha. And do you have the relevant papers?” he licked his teeth and looked up and down Holly’s form.

She raised a slight eyebrow at him. “Yes, we do.” She made no move to get them out.

He made a small, irritated smile. “Could you show them to me?”

She nodded and cocked her head to the other side. “I won’t deny it’s in the realm of possibilities.”

“Then please do so.” He ordered tensely.

“You could also just take our word for it, Gale.” George shrugged as Holly rummaged in her bag for the papers.

Sir Rupert smiled widely. “You know the new rules Mr Cubbins. Agents must always have their client agreements with them when out on a job,” he said pleasantly. “There have been far too many small agencies without supervision. We must have order,” he chuckled.

Holly gave him the papers and he flicked through them with his gloved hands.

“Well, I must say, it _does_ seem to be in order!” he said, as if that was a big surprise.

Holly put the papers back in the bag.

“By the way, Mr Cubbins,” he said as we moved to go. “You were seen near Hardimann Library the other day. Not trying to do some forbidden research, were you?” He asked, waving a finger at George as if he was a naughty child trying to steal the biscuits on a shelf he couldn’t reach.

George pushed his glasses further up on his nose. “Me? Of course not.”

“No, because you don’t have the necessary permits. Does he, Grieves?”

The big lump who was apparently Grieves nodded stupidly until one of the others elbowed him.

Sir Rupert gave him a look and he promptly shook his head.

“See, Cubbins. Even Grieves knows you don’t have the permits, as do everyone else,” he gloated.

“Well, I did stop by to do some research for the case for tonight, but I was rejected because, as you say, I don’t have the permits. Now, if you’ll please have us excused – we’re a bit busy and this bag is heavy. I’d appreciate not being held up by sycophantic reprobates like you.”

Time stopped. My heart skipped several beats. I took a look at the three giants and Sir Rupert, who I knew had near super-human speed. I thought how fast I could reach into the left side pocket of my rucksack where I kept the flares and if I could have the dexterity to draw one of the throwing knives at the same time.

Luckily, the muscles were as thick as they were big. They clearly didn’t understand the big words George was using.

The same could not be said for Sir Rupert. He blinked a couple of times before making a disbelieving chuckle.

“Sycophantic reprobate,” he repeated slowly. “Would you care to elaborate on that statement?

His smile had barely flickered. One could even argue that it hadn’t changed at all, but he had somehow become sharper. The slow deliberate movements of cocking his head and putting his hand on his belt exactly next to his rapier, told of a readiness for violence that I didn’t feel entirely comfortable with.

George shrugged. “I dunno. It’s a waste of energy, isn’t it? We all know what you are.”

He took off his glasses and rubbed them in his shirt. I found myself mesmerised by the slow decisive circles that meant that someone was going to get their arse verbally handed to them. It was like watching a train wreck unfolding in front of me. Horrific and fascinating at the same time.

“As I said – you’re a sycophant. Willing to lick the boots of Penelope Fittes for even the slightest ounce of power. In fact, there aren’t many things you aren’t willing to do, which makes you incredibly dull. You know that what you’re doing is wrong, but you’re pleasantly surprised that it doesn’t affect you. The only thing you want is power and you’re willing to do anything to get it. You’re nothing but Penelope Fittes’ lapdog and you know it. Everyone knows it. Hell, even Grieves knows it.”

He smiled coldly and nodded at the big lump from before who was again, nodding eagerly.

Sir Rupert wasn’t smiling anymore. His jaw worked and his eyes were narrowed at George.

“Holly!” I cried with false cheerfulness. “We had to go, didn’t we? We need to catch the train.”

“Right!” Holly smiled too widely. “We really need to go.”

“Besides,” George continued, even though both Holly and I were grabbing his arms. “I know DEPRAC’s regulations very well. You’re not a DEPRAC agent. You have no authority here. You’re no more than an idiot hassling people on the street. Go hassle someone else.”

I turned back towards Sir Rupert. “Train. Catch. We need to train the catch – catch the train.”

We virtually frogmarched George away. I could feel Sir Rupert’s glare prickling at the back of my neck.

We didn’t speak for quite some time. It wasn’t until we sat on the train and I punched George on the shoulder.

“You idiot!” I hissed at him.

He raised his hands defensively “Hey, I just call it like I see it,”

“Sure, but could you possibly call it in private?” I ground out.

“Nah, Lucy. There are some things I just can’t let stand. And you heard the way he was talking about Flo. Nope, it had to be done.”

I rubbed my face.

Lockwood was waiting for us when we reached the station. With a headshake, Holly told him of what George had done and said but rather than reprimanding him, Lockwood seemed proud that he had stood up to Gale and commended him on his courage.

However, in my opinion, George had crossed that fine line between bravery and into stupidity.

We found the address easily enough. It was one of those houses built in the seventies when London saw a sudden surge in newcomers due to the fact that London, at the time, was the only place with psychic detection agencies. New neighbourhoods had shown up like mushrooms after a rainfall, all with houses that looked exactly the same.

Unlike this one though, the other houses had gradually gained some individuality in the form of new windows or extensions.

This house, I imagined, looked almost the same as imagine it had done when it had been built. The only difference was what time does to a building over several decades.

The roof was green with moss and algae, the wood of the window frame was rotting. The tiles leading to the front door were cracked and crumbling. When Lockwood knocked on the door, I noticed the paint was peeling and there was a tiny crack in corner of the frosted glass.

Barnes opened the door with his familiar grumpy expression and looked around before letting us in. The interior of the house was following the same brown-green-orange colour scheme of the seventies, but it appeared to be more well-kept than the outside.

“So, who died here, and wouldn’t it be easier just to tear down the building? Doesn’t look like it’s worth much to keep,” George remarked.

Barnes blinked a couple of times. “This is my _home_ , Cubbins.”

“Oh. Well, it’s a lovely brown carpet,” he tried, but Barnes glared at him.

“Just come in,” he grumbled.

“That row of ceramic ducks on the wall is beautiful. Very… straight.”

Compliments really never were George’s strong suit.”

“All right, all right. Save your breath. Just sit down and make yourselves at home. You’ll probably be wanting tea.”

He pointed us towards the small dining room and went in the opposite direction himself.

We awkwardly went in there, where a dining table in solid oak was waiting for us surrounded by walls covered by a wallpaper with paisley pattern in forest green colours. The wall had several photos of rolling green hills and fields.

The sound of the kettle came from the kitchen and we slowly sat down on the stiff, uncomfortable chairs. Barnes came only moments later with a tray of mugs and to our pleasant surprise, chocolate biscuits.

“They’re lovely photographs, Inspector Barnes. I didn’t know you had an interest in the countryside,” I smiled.

“What did you expect? I do have other interests you know. But to the point. I didn’t ask you to come here to discuss interior decoration, I came to give you a warning.”

“A warning?” Lockwood copied.

“Yes, a warning. As you’ve probably noticed, things are changing. Power has shifted. Before, we could count on the Fittes and Rotwell representatives to work against each other. That was good. It created a balance so the rest of us could work against this problem. Now, the large corporations run the show. We are being micromanaged and with every small regulation they come up with, you small agencies are being squeezed out. When you come home, there’ll be another invitation waiting for you, but that’s not the real problem.”

Lockwood sighed heavily. “What is the real problem then?”

“It’s that certain prominent people are losing patience with you. You lot are making yourselves noticed, and not in a good way.”

He looked around at each of us. His eyes especially lingered on George.

Holly scoffed. “Certain prominent people? I imagine you mean Penelope Fittes.”

“I won’t say it,” he huffed.

“Come on, Barnes. Say it. Or are you afraid of someone listening in? Is there a bug in your teapot?”

Barnes pointed at George. “See, that’s exactly the sort of attitude that’s going to get you into trouble.”

Lockwood shook his head. “We aren’t stepping out of line.”

“Aren’t you, though?” Barnes said tightly. “If you aren’t, then why is there DEPRAC-personnel being taken off assignments to keep an eye on you? If you aren’t, why is Penelope Fittes asking for weekly reports on your movements?”

Lockwood smirked. “I didn’t know she took such an interest in our work. We’re honoured.”

“No, you’re not,” Barnes growled. “You’re at risk. Why can’t you just lay low? Bad things happen to the people who make themselves noticed or go up against _them_. Adam Bunchurch could testify to that if he were still alive.”

Holly narrowed her eyes. “So, you know who did it.”

“Of course, I know who did it. _You_ know who did it. – _Everyone_ knows who did it. But can I prove it? – No. If I could prove it, would I ever get to make an arrest? – No. Whatever it is you’re doing; I suggest you stop it immediately!”

Lockwood smiled. “But Inspector Barnes, we aren’t doing anything untoward. You know us – we do good work.”

“Bunchurch did good work too.”

George snorted. “That’s debatable.”

“That’s not the point!” Barnes roared and slammed his fist into the table. “The point is that he went against them and now he’s dead!” He breathed heavily. “I have virtually no influence at DEPRAC anymore. I can’t help you if push comes to shove.”

We all sat, taking that in. For years, we had actually come to rely on Barnes quite a lot. Now, we were on our own.

“Besides, you’re quite clearly lying,” he continued. “I can see it all there in your smug, self-important grin and the way Cubbins is sitting like a puffed-up frog. It’s clear as day. And if it’s clear to me, you can bet it’s clear to others as well.”

Lockwood rubbed the back of his neck. “Inspector Barnes, we've only done a bit of research, we -"

“I don’t want to know, Lockwood,” he bit out. “Whatever it is, stop it and keep your heads low. Let them forget about you. I'm the one they’re going to send out to process your corpses. I'd rather not have to do that.”

Lockwood swallowed hard.

“You’ve done impressive work over the years. Personally, I had expected you to be dead a long time ago, but your agency has flourished. Impress me again.”

…

_Quill:_

The thing about libraries, archives and the like is that if you need to find something, everything is conveniently sorted by the author's name. As it were, it turned out that _‘anonymous’_ had a lot of stuff printed through the last century and a half through our company.

The index cards had been unhelpful to say the least so now I was painstakingly going through all the small magazine-sized publications by myself.

I was halfway when I decided I needed a coffee break. The archive was a relatively new building in Stratford. My grandfather had it built around forty years ago but had kept it in a classic design rather than just building a warehouse for storage. It gave the archive the feel of an old library, which I very much appreciated.

I missed him sometimes, my grandfather. He seemed to be the only one supportive of my decision to start as an agent. Certainly, no one had been prouder when I started at Fittes. I wondered what he would think of all this mess.

By now, I could say quite honestly that I felt ashamed about ever having been a part of the agency. When I had been young, I had been so proud. My career had been great as well and I had benefitted from being part of it for years. I had basked in the attention as an agent and they kept boosting my confidence, which made me stay. They had fed my ego and my vanity. and I had eaten off the palm of their hands.

Taking them down was the least I could do to atone for my sins.

I went to the small staffroom to get my coffee and sat on the mezzanine looking down at it all. It was an empire, what was before me. We would soon need to build another archive to have room for everything.

Over the last few months of working here, I had come to appreciate the archive. Only two people other than I worked here, just doing basic maintenance and a lot of dusting. It was peaceful. Especially now, on a Saturday when I had the entire place for myself.

Or at least that's what I was supposed to, which was why it surprised me to hear noises from downstairs.

Directly underneath where I was sitting, there was a door. I had no idea what was behind it as it had been locked for all the time I had been here, and the key was no-where to be found. The others didn’t know either, but I thought for sure I heard the door open and shut. Keys turning in the lock.

Someone was rushing out and up the stairs.

“Mum?” I chuckled as I saw her coming up.

She made a startled sound and dropped the large pile of books and paper she had been carrying.

She looked at me with wide eyes. “Quill? What are you doing here today? It’s Saturday.”

I scratched the back of my neck. “Oh, I just thought I’d work ahead a bit. I was planning on taking a day off next week and thought I ought to compensate.”

I reached out for some of the books she had dropped.

“Don’t!” she cried out, “I can handle it.”

I scoffed. “It’s fine, mum, don’t worry. I’ll help you.”

I picked up the nearest books while she picked up the papers. She kept glancing at me.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing, darling.”

I looked down at the books. They were all in the same sort of cover and I wondered if she was preparing a series or perhaps a collection.

“Huh. ‘ _Mapping Dark London’_ That’s some title. Dystopian sci-fi?” I guessed and turned it around to read the blurb.

She took it from my hands as if it were something dangerous. “Of sorts,” she said with headshake.

I helped her with the rest and within a minute we had gathered it all.

She gave me a thin smile. “I’m proud of you, Quill. I’m happy you’re finally taking this seriously.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m doing my best,” I promised her.

I held the door open for her and watched her leave. I shook my head. She needed a holiday. I would talk to my dad about that.

I went back to my table and my now cold coffee and sighed.

I was still grumpy over the last couple of days. I wanted all the best for Tony and Lucy, but it still hurt. I knew that this was probably where things were heading, I had known that all along. But knowing and feeling were two rather different things.

I thought I had been prepared, but I supposed there was no actual way of preparing for such a thing.

The image of the two of them kissing popped up in my mind again and I kicked the chair. I took several deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. I didn’t have time to deal with heartbreak.

I rubbed my face and downed the cold coffee with a grimace. I let the frustration fuel me in looking for the stupid publication but even there, I was left disappointed. We didn’t have it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember to leave a comment before you go - let me know your thoughts! ❤


	51. Snakes in Uniform

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the delay on this chapter. I blame my 10-year-old son completely. He asked me to watch Miraculous Ladybug with him because he didn't have anyone to fangirl/boy with, so obviously, we've binge-watched all of it. And then he wanted to discuss theories, and then he asked me to find fanart (Some of the fanart in that fandom can be a bit risqué for a 10-year-old to stumble across) and slowly but surely, I was dragged with him into a Miraculous black hole.   
> It took me a while to get my focus back, but here we are.

It was Sunday, and Lockwood had, true to whatever agreement he had with Quill’s parents, left to go see them. Holly was at home for once, doing whatever it was she did at home. My guess was home-made granola or something like that. George was pacing in the library the entire evening. I was sitting in one of the armchairs with my sketchpad, trying to make the hair on the Cold Maiden I had been drawing look more realistic.

“George, could you please just sit down.” I groaned, getting slightly dizzy by his constant movement.

He shook his head and kept pacing.

“I’ll let you play with the skull if you stop,” I offered but that didn’t have any effect either.

 _“WHAT?!”_ The skull screeched from the coffee table.

I snorted. “I didn’t actually mean that” I assured the skull.

_“You better not! That was a horrible joke! I nearly had a heart attack!”_

I chuckled. “You’re dead, skull. You don’t have a heart.”

_“Words hurt, you know, Lucy. Words hurt.”_

I shook my head and showed it the drawing. “What do you think?”

_“Awful. Absolutely horrible. Break your pencil and use the paper for wiping your bum. You’ll never be a real artist.”_

I smiled widely. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

I winked at it and it made a face with the plasm to roll its eyes back at me.

I heard the door open and shut and George stilled like a rabbit looking out for a threat.

Quill came into the library, but he barely looked at me.

“Hi,” he softly said, before quickly looking away.

The dismissal hurt and I wanted to talk to him. To say something to him that would make him look at me and even smile at me. But what could I possibly say that would make him happy?

Somehow, I didn’t think it would work, telling him that I was worried for what Lockwood might do if I... if I what, exactly? If I started a relationship with him? A relationship. With Quill Kipps. Was that even a possibility? Was that even what _he_ wanted? Or did he just want a fling? Or even that?

I had no idea.

He and Lockwood seemed to do better together though, and that made me smile. They deserved happiness.

Quill told George that he hadn’t found the publication we needed, and George instantly lightened and threw out the _‘I told you so’_ s and ‘ _if you want something done properly you have to do it yourself’_ s.

Quill shook his head with an exasperated little smile and George stormed towards his room, leaving us alone in the library.

As soon as George left, the room somehow changed. It was as if the air pressure in the room both rose and fell at the same time. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that we had a haunting on our hands.

In a way, we did. I was certainly haunted by whatever was or wasn’t between us.

We caught each others eye for what might have been half a second or several hours. Something inside my ribcage suddenly felt very tight.

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say anything, he cut me off with a sad smile.

“Goodbye, Lucy,” he said quietly and left.

I heard the front door open and shut again.

_“You know, as far as punishments go, I’m grateful that watching you interact with people isn’t the eternal sort because that stuff is painful to witness.”_

I ripped the drawing off the pad and tore it to shreds. That stupid hair was never going to work out anyway.

I went in the kitchen where George ran like the wind with Lockwood on his heels, trying to slow him down.

I went to stand in Georges way, thinking that might make him stop up, but he was so distracted that he simply barrelled straight into me. Lockwood slammed into George from the sudden stop and we all toppled over in a pile, all three, with me at the bottom.

George’s elbow got me in the diaphragm, and I was certain that I broke a rib or two.

Lockwood’s grinning face landed half an inch from mine which could possibly have been nice, had I not wanted to punch him for preventing George from getting off me so I could breathe.

I managed to tap his shoulder and he rolled off. George flopped over too, and I got on my hands and knees, trying to breathe.

Lockwood put a hand on my back and smiled sheepishly at me. “Are you alright, Luce?”

I nodded but couldn’t form words yet.

“Look, George. All I’m saying is that maybe it’s better to wait until tomorrow. Greenwich isn’t going anywhere, and we need to be better prepared.” Lockwood said and sat up against the wall.

“Can anyone please make me a cup of tea?” I wheezed.

Lockwood raised his hands. “See George – Lucy needs you.”

George stomped over to fill the kettle and aggressively slammed it down. “There!”

Lockwood sighed. “Just don’t go tonight, George. Please?”

“Why? I’m _so close_ to getting it! To solving the Problem, don’t you understand?”

George ripped off his glasses and rubbed them in his sweater before realising that a woollen sweater isn’t the best for cleaning glasses. He then lifted it to get to his undershirt giving us an eyeful of… George.

Lockwood rubbed his face. “I know. I know it’s important to you – to all of us, but I’m worried about this surveillance. If you go out alone tonight, it’ll be suspicious, but I found this in the mail.”

He dug out a folded piece of glossy paper from his trouser pocket. It almost looked like a party invitation, but I doubted the event would be particularly festive.

“It’s that summons Barnes was talking about.” I realised.

Lockwood nodded. “Listen George, if you leave now, alone, it’ll be suspicious as hell, but if we all leave tomorrow together, then we can split up. Lucy and I can go to the gathering and you and Hol can go to Greenwich.”

George huffed. “I need to go alone, Lockwood.”

Lockwood frowned and his mouth turned into a thin line. “Fine. But promise that you’ll be careful, okay?”

George rolled his eyes.

“Promise, George.” He repeated.

“I’m going to the library, not tackling a wraith. You’re the ones to worry about, really. Going into the lion’s den,”

I got up on a chair, still feeling a bit winded. Lockwood sat next to me.

“Are you alright?” He asked softly.

I caught a glimpse of George rolling his eyes behind Lockwood’s back. He was taking mugs out of the cabinet. I noticed that he had taken out my favourite and I smiled at bit at that.

“I’ll be fine. You know me,” I coughed.

“Yeah, unfortunately, I do.” Lockwood grumbled.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Lockwood’s eyes widened comically, and his cheeks turned pink.

“I just – I don’t mean that I’m unlucky to know you, you know, I just mean that you uh – have a certain tendency to uh – underplay your injuries. And that’s unfortunate…” He trailed off with a wince.

I scoffed. “Hardly. I just know when I've been through worse. There’s no use in complaining, really.”

Lockwood shook his head. “I just want you to be careful if you’re hurt. Is that such a crime?” he asked with a soft smile.

I sighed and leaned back in the chair. “I suppose not, but really, I’m fine.”

George put the tea tray in front of us along with a plate of biscuits.

“You’re staying then?”

George grunted and scratched himself in an unmentionable place. “Might as well.”

The next day, we left together. Holly had only stopped by for a few hours, making sure all our papers were in order. She didn’t even have to come in as it was her day off, but she wanted to check up on us. That warmed me a bit on the inside. I had thought about my issues all night, trying to see things from different points of view but I felt I needed her perspective. As soon as I saw her though, my determination to speak to her wilted. She was frazzled and obviously in a hurry to check up on our paperwork. My problems could wait.

We took the tube to the Strand. George got off before we did, then it was just Lockwood and me. We both carried large bags with equipment, and I had double and triple checked everything. We had a small case in Walworth immediately after and I patted the side of my rucksack to assure myself that I had the papers. I hoped we wouldn’t be stopped though. I had the skull with me, which was risky business indeed, but we wanted it to check out Penelope again. I told it that I wanted it to look for potential weaknesses, but honestly it was just as much to get it to confirm for me one more time that it really _was_ Marissa Fittes. It was still hard for me to believe it.

Sure, something creepy was going on, but I still had a tiny hope that the explanation would be a teensy bit more logical than Marissa Fittes in a new body.

Lockwood nudged my shoulder. We had arrived at Fittes headquarters and I hadn’t even noticed.

About a dozen agents were standing around outside. There was a group of kids pressed close together, wearing the ridiculous yellow berets of Armstrong. They scowled at us as we passed them. Another group were wearing the light blue jackets of Tamworth. I found myself idly thinking how awful those things would be to clean. Another group were wearing pink striped blazers, signalling that they belonged to Mellingcamp. I nodded to a boy I’d worked with previously when I was a freelancer and he sent me a brilliant smile and an eager wave in return.

Lockwood looked down at me with a small smirk and a raised eyebrow.

“Shut up,” I mumbled and gave him a small swat in the stomach.

His smile widened. “I didn’t say anything.”

I rolled my eyes as we went up the marble steps.

Inside there were more small groups standing around, their jackets and hats signalling their employment. There were many different colours, but what stood out the most to me were the colours that weren’t present. The dark green blazers of Dullop and Tweed. The awful mustard-coloured jackets of Bunchurch, and many more. I almost missed the Rotwell-red jackets.

It was easy to separate them all because they all looked alike in their uniforms and they all stood in groups, glancing nervously at anyone who wasn’t their colleague. Competition ran deep through this city.

When I had first started at Lockwood and co, I had been slightly ashamed of not having a snappy uniform. I had to admit that I had a soft spot for the midnight blue blazers of Tendy and if I were to be honest with myself, Quill’s grey Fittes uniform had been quite lovely.

Now, however, I stood proud in my dark grey skirt and my practical forest green, plasm-stained parka. I was proud not to wear a uniform. Not wearing one was a signal of the independence we had.

I looked at Lockwood to find him giving me a fond smile.

“You really did look lovely in that dress that night at the Anniversary Party.”

I huffed a small laugh and looked down. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t notice your shoes though,” he said with a small smirk and moved further into the room before I could ask him what the hell that was supposed to mean.

The room that the spectacle was supposed to go down in, was the Hall of Pillars. The spectacular hall had hosted several balls, including the Anniversary Party we’d attended a few years before. Like the theatre, it was full of gilded details, but the white and black marble and large mirrors on the walls made the room feel ice cold opposed to the warm theatre with its red velvet seats.

Across the room in between all the agents, were the nine columns that gave the place its name. They were all in blue-ish silver glass and contained the Sources of some of the most famous Spirits Marissa Fittes had handled.

We got in late, so we had to stand in the back which would have suited me perfectly. After all, while I did want the skull to take a gander at the bitch, I didn’t want to get _too_ close. The only problem was that I had trouble seeing. A group of Tendy-agents on the last legs of their careers, judging by their heights were standing in front of us side by side like a wall.

I was somewhat tall for a girl, but how did they even manage to grow boys that size? Could they even get into all the nooks and crannies you had to as an agent?

The one to my left had shoulders so wide I had to wonder if he could even reach the corners when hoovering or if he had to attack them sideways.

Lockwood laughed when he saw me standing on my tip-toes.

“I won’t lie – that’s adorable,” he said, pointing at my feet with a wide grin.

I huffed in exasperation and crossed my arms over my chest.

He took pity on me by throwing his bag down near the column. That way I could stand on the bag and use the column for support; something the ghost in it seemed to appreciate a lot, judging by the way it glided against the glass.

Its Source was a serrated blade put on display. It had to be the Clapham Butcher Boy from fifty years back. I had seen enough pictures of that knife in all the history books and in the Fittes Manual to recognise it.

 _“Piss off and find your own human! This one is taken”_ the skull hissed.

I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing. “Are you jealous, skull?” I murmured.

_“What? Look around! Look at those pillars! Bunch of creeps.”_

I took a look around and noticed that the Clapham Butcher Boy evidently wasn’t my only fan. _All_ the spirits were looking at me. Long Hugh Henratty, The Gory Girl, the Mad Knight, and the Vicious Vicar. They were all staring at me, their plasm swirling around in their silver glass confines.

My mouth went dry. I could only imagine what it might be like if the glass broke. We would all be dead in seconds.

The room was buzzing with conversations as people tried to guess what the announcement was about.

 _“Here she comes,”_ the skull whispered.

All as one, the spirits in the columns slowly turned towards the stairs, like moths to a flame.

Like a wave spreading from the front of the room to the back, silence fell.

The sound of heels was the only thing heard. Slowly, Penelope Fittes appeared. She came down from somewhere upstairs and it wasn’t until then that I noticed the small lectern at the bottom of the marble staircase. She was again in green. This time a dark green knee-length number that hugged her figure and made her look very professional.

Directly behind her came Sir Rupert Gale, almost hopping down the stairs with how jaunty his walk was. He took position next to the podium from where he stood with his unnaturally bright smile and freshly polished rapier.

Ms Fittes stood at the lectern and cleared her throat. I heard the small crackle of loudspeakers being turned on.

“Dear fellow agencies; agents; children.” She paused and looked around with a benevolent smile.

The skull was making retching noises.

“Slowly we are changing seasons. The nights get longer, the darkness spreads.”

I saw an older supervisor tapping his foot, obviously just as impatient to get past the poetry as I was.

“Last Winter – The Black Winter was the worst one yet. So many young lives were lost in the battle against the Problem, sacrificing themselves in the noble effort of keeping the rest of us safe,” she put a hand over her heart and looked out at all of us with a masterfully faked expression of sympathy.

Bile rose in my throat. All those lost lives were on her hands and there she stood, mocking their memories.

“Now, we head into Autumn and the Winter we face does not bode well. Now is the time that we must band together. Protect each other. Help one another in our quest to purge this country of these Visitors who have far overstayed their welcome.”

She looked out at us as if she had just made an incredibly funny joke and was expecting us all to laugh. No one did.

 _“She’s hardly in a position to be speaking about overstaying one’s welcome. And I’m not going anywhere,”_ the skull scoffed.

I turned my head to tell Lockwood how disgusting I found her, only to realise that I was once again alone. I felt a surge of anger and the Clapham Butcher Boy pressed himself closer to me. I sneered at him. It was the same again and again. I didn’t know what I could say or do that would make him stop hiding things or leave me out of his plans.

I looked around to see if he was somewhere nearby, but no luck.

A girl looked up at me and her eyes flashed in recognition. I had a hard time placing her though. I squinted, trying to remember her face, but I quickly forgave myself for not recognising her because her face wasn’t very memorable. In fact, it reminded me a bit of an old t-shirt of mine that had been washed so many times that you needed to hold it up against the light in order to discern the pattern on the fabric.

It took me far too long, but eventually, I got it. Her name was Tina, but I don’t remember her last name. One of the reasons I had a hard time recognising her was that last time I had seen her; her jacket had the wine-red colours of Rotwell. Now, the light grey of her Fittes uniform made her pale face and even paler and her hair look almost see-through.

Her eyes darted back and forth before she raised her hand in a barely-there wave.

I sent her an equally barely-there smile and her eyes widened. She wasn’t looking at me anymore though, but rather behind me.

I was about to turn around when a hand slapped onto the column exactly next to my ear. I’m embarrassed to admit that I flinched a little.

“Lucy Carlyle,” a male voice purred in my ear. “We meet again.”

I rolled my eyes. “What do you want?” I asked without turning around. I was happy that I was wearing my bag on my back so the creep couldn’t press himself closer to me, but he only had to glance down a bit and the skull would be in full view.

Luckily or unluckily, depending how you look at it, he came around to stand next to me. Luckily because he couldn’t see the skull from that angle, unluckily because now I could see his dark eyes that were once again undressing me.

James Rumsford as he was called, gave a low chuckle. “Do you really want a list?”

He put his arm around my shoulders, and I bit my cheek not to bite his hand. Quill’s Fittes uniform felt spoiled to me now that I saw this snake in one.

“Do you mind? I’m trying to listen to _your leader’s_ announcement.” I pointed out as diplomatically as I was capable of. Holly would have been proud.

Rather than backing off, he moved slightly in front of me and gave me a charming smile. “Ah. I could always give you a summary.”

His hand moved from around my shoulder to caress the side of my face. I slowly leaned away from his touch. Something that seemed to amuse him. His hand moved with me, never breaking contact. It made me nauseous.

He licked his lips. “I already know what it’s about. You needn’t worry about that. In fact, we could leave right now, and you wouldn’t miss a thing.” He smiled widely and his eyes quickly darted up to the front of the hall.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I deadpanned and crossed my arms in front of me.

His smile stiffened slightly before turning into a smirk and alarm bells were going off inside my mind.

He took a step closer, so he was barely a hairs breath from touching my body with his. “Are you certain of that, Lucy?”

I snorted. “Positive.”

I leaned against the column to try to look put together even though he was creeping me out.

“I beg to differ. You see, I think you’re going to come with me. We’ll go somewhere private where I can tell you all about the announcement.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I repeated and looked back up where Penelope Fittes was speaking.

“- have had a long tradition for helping young agents –“

I squinted. Something was missing. Or rather someone. Sir Rupert Gale was nowhere to be seen. I tried scanning the crowd again, looking for Lockwood. I was worried that he might have done something stupid to attract Sir Rupert’s attention.

I didn’t see either of them, but my attention was quickly captured by the hand that was suddenly holding my arm in a vice-like grip.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” I looked at James Rumsford again. He was smiling again, but the smile he gave me was hard and predatory. Gone was the pretence of conversation and I started thinking about how to get myself out of the situation without attracting too much attention.

He leaned all the way up to me, touching my cheek with his nose. “Come on, Lucy. Let’s go.” He whispered and started pulling me away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts


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